Kennedy Center Alliance for Arts Education Network
Project Grants for 2009-2010

A

Alabama Alliance for Arts Education (AAAE)

The Alabama Alliance for Arts Education’s Artist Training in Assessment is a professional development program for teaching artists and arts specialists in the state of Alabama. This professional development program aims to use broad concept curriculum design to allow for arts integrated curriculum planning. Rather than follow a specific lesson plan template, the project proposes to focus training on unit design, broad concepts, and the identification and measurement of learning goals. As teachers design their own lessons, their new ability to measure learning goals will help artists and schools provide accountability and sustainability for their arts programs. This program will be offered statewide, and teaching artists and arts specialists can participate at no charge if they apply for a fellowship to the program.

Alaska Arts Education Consortium, Inc. (AAEC)

The Alaska Arts Education Consortium’s Growing Arts Education Leaders in Alaska, Phase II will distribute information about the arts at the 2009 Alaska Principals Conference, as well as provide an Administrators Arts Retreat. In addition, this program provides an arts information evening reception at the October 2009 Alaska Principals Conference, where effective practices, relevant data from Alaska schools and districts, available resources and research will be shared among busy administrators. During the conference, an arts learning session will feature the success of Alaska schools in both incorporating the arts on a regular, frequent basis and also improving student motivation, attendance, behavior and test scores. Finally, an Administrators Arts Retreat in March 2010 will include a visit to an award-winning, arts-focused school with a diverse school population, sessions on brain research and art infusion in rural Title One sites, and discussions on arts integration. This Retreat will close with further ideas and revisions for the Growing Arts Education Leaders Action Plan, while new leaders are recruited to the growing cadre.

C

California Alliance for Arts Education (CAAE)

The California Alliance for Arts Education’s Coach in Every Corner project teaches facilitation and planning skills to arts consultants, who then guide district leaders in developing arts education plans. This project is one of many ways that the CAAE aims to help each of the State’s school districts enact a policy, adopt a plan, and approve a budget to implement sequential K-12 arts education. Over the last three years the Alliance has developed a cadre of fifteen coaches, who assist district leadership in systematic, community-based planning. The Alliance is now seeking to bring experienced coaches into three new school districts in California. The coaches, identified for their excellence in the field, will be trained to facilitate arts education planning at each district, where they will work with administrators, teachers, parents and community members.

F

Florida Alliance for Arts Education (FAAE)

The Florida Alliance for Arts Education’s project adapts the KCAAEN Community Audit as a tool used to examine Florida schools with exemplary arts education. As a cohort of 22 Arts Achieve! Model Schools, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Schools of Excellence in Arts Education and The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts National Schools of Distinction in Arts Education will be studied. Characteristics that are common to all of the schools will be identified and used to develop guidelines for evaluating, strengthening, and building quality arts education programs.

H

Hawai`i Arts Alliance

The Hawai’i Arts Alliance, along with two of its ARTS FIRST Partners (Hawai’i Department of Education and State Foundation on Culture and the Arts), will design and implement an ARTS FIRST Institute in June 2010, offered to elementary classroom teachers statewide. This Institute intends to train teachers in the use of concepts and strategies in the standards-based ARTS FIRST Toolkit. The four-day Institute will allow teachers to learn in a sequential manner, create a dynamic in which the educator is both learner and teacher, practice strategies, reflect and ask questions, and develop lessons with the assistance of the teaching artist presenters. As a participant, each teacher will receive a hard copy of the ARTS FIRST Toolkit, as well as the opportunity for Professional Development credit.

K

Arts Kentucky

Arts Kentucky, as part of the Kentucky Assembly of Local Arts Agencies, will work with educators and school decision-makers to promote an understanding of Kentucky’s newly-enacted arts program assessment, New Arts Assessment Introduction and Implementation, for public schools. As this program provides a radical departure from past practices, Arts Kentucky intends to counter any misunderstandings surrounding these new educational approaches. Through shared information, suggested best practices for implementation, and new avenues for idea-sharing among educational professionals, Arts Kentucky aspires to alleviate the lack of arts teaching jobs and school arts programming.

M

Maine Alliance for Arts Education (MAAE)

In the project Pathways & Partnerships for Creative Learning, the Maine Alliance for Arts Education will use the Kennedy Center Community Audit for Arts Education tool in six communities. Each of these communities link schools, after-school programs, and community resources into strong and varied K-12 pathways for creative education. By employing an expanded definition of ‘creative learning’ based on two years of data collected from the Arts Education Census as well as the Community Audit, MAAE will demonstrate how these communities combine a wide set of resources with an plan to model what is possible for other Maine communities.

Arts Education in Maryland Schools Alliance, Inc.(AEMS)

The fourth Teaching Artist Institute (TAI) aims to ensure that teaching artists are delivering high quality, standards-based arts experiences that are enhancing learning both in the arts and other content areas. The AEMS Alliance, in collaboration with the Maryland chapter of Young Audiences/Arts for Learning and the Maryland State Arts Council, offers a professional development program for twenty new teaching artists and classroom teachers entitled Bringing Your Art into the Classroom. This program is specifically designed for teaching artists interested in working alongside classroom teachers in Maryland public schools. The training program consists of a three-day retreat, which offers a multitude of workshops on lesson plan design, assessment strategies, classroom management, and arts integration. TAI will follow participants as they refine their lesson plans, pilot their classroom residencies, and provide a forum to share their experiences at the AEMS Annual Conference and at the Maryland Artist/Teacher Institute (MATI). TAI will also offer quarterly follow-up, day-long training opportunities, convening, and networking opportunities.

Arts|Learning (Massachusetts)

The National Arts and Learning Collaborative, which will soon be known as “Arts|Learning,” is a foundation that aims to expand its network to support and advocate for preschool through college arts education. Throughout the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, “Arts|Learning” will position itself as a leader and focal point for arts education by uniting artistic opinions among educational, political, cultural, and community affiliates, including the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and the Massachusetts Departments of Elementary and Secondary Education, Higher Education, and Early Childhood Education.

ArtServe Michigan

ArtServe Michigan, in partnership with the Michigan Council for the Arts and Cultural Affairs, the Michigan Department of Education and the Arts Ark Association, aims to support the development and distribution of a new Michigan Arts Education Tool Kit. This Tool Kit will equip, empower and increase the ArtServe Michigan network’s effectiveness in advocating for the importance of arts education policies, programs and funding in Michigan. ArtServe will utilize the KCAAEN Arts Education Advocacy Tool Kit as a model, but design its tool kit in a manner relevant to current Michigan conditions. The Tool Kit will be made available on ArtServe’s website and distributed by mail and email to school districts, arts education organizations, arts and cultural organizations, and other arts education stakeholders. ArtServe will also promote and conduct Tool Kit training as part of its 2010 Arts Advocacy Event, an annual advocacy conference in spring 2010. This event is offered in a virtual online format, with the aim of maximizing statewide participation.

Mississippi Alliance for Arts Education (MAAE)

The Mississippi Alliance for Arts Education (MAAE) will offer twelve, full-day, arts focused professional development workshops for K-12 teachers and administrators in six regions of the state. MAAE and Mississippi 2007 Partners in Education team members will identify and train potential presenters and teaching artists to conduct the professional development workshops. Features of the professional development workshops will include an arts experience that is aligned with framework competencies of core subjects and a Power Point focused on research-based topics. Participants and project partners will be invited to reflect upon workshop topics and discuss the impact of the training on their teaching at the 2010 Arts Front and Center Forum.

Montana Alliance for Arts Education (MAAE)

The Montana Alliance for Arts Education (MAAE) aims to support the continuation and expansion of its professional development program for Montana’s K-12 teachers. This program will reach rural school teachers who have no access to arts specialists, arts resources, and often little or no budget for arts programming. MAAE will partner with MEA-MFT at their annual October conference, will continue to work with the Montana Reading Council and the Montana Small Schools Alliance, and will also collaborate with the Golden Triangle Consortium and the Montana Community Education Leadership organization (MCEL). The MAAE will contract with teaching artists to provide arts integrated workshops and day-long institute programs. The project will also provide a handbook including model lesson plans as well as information on adapting materials and activities for children with disabilities. All of these materials will be available on the MAAE website, in order to maximize exposure and usage.

O

Ohio Alliance for Arts Education (OAAE)

The Arts Education Highly Qualified Professional Development (HQPD) project will provide five regional one-day sessions for arts educators and teaching artists in Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Findlay, and Wooster. Regional workshops will be hosted in cooperation with the Kennedy Center Partners in Education teams and professional arts organizations such as the Ohio Music Education Association and the Ohio Art Education Association. Professional development workshops in the areas of assessment, integration, and standards will be provided at each one day session. Each workshop will be taught by arts education professionals with expertise and experience in the field of education, the arts, and working with adult learners. The aim of the project is to increase the capacity and practices of teachers to provide instruction in and through the arts for their students.

Oklahoma Alliance for Arts Education (OAAE)

The Oklahoma Alliance for Arts Education aims to provide leadership to bring fine arts education to students. Through a two-year proposal that establishes a structure for exploring, developing and disseminating curriculum materials for the instruction of critical and creative thinking skills, the OAAE will place the arts at the core of learning for the twenty-first century. Based upon multi-aged, diverse learning communities which will convene throughout a two-year period, participants will explore the nature of creativity in their discrete subject areas. With guidance from several Kennedy Center Partners in Education instructors, each community will document their progress and combine their findings into curriculum materials that will be published for school districts across the state.

Oregon Alliance for Arts Education (OAAE)

As direct follow-up to the 2009 Oregon Alliance for Arts Education Statewide Summer Institute, the OAAE will offer two regional professional development sessions in key geographic regions of the State of Oregon. At these regional events, participants will share lessons learned during the summer as well as opportunities and challenges they met when bringing their institute learning back to their own classrooms in their regions. Participants will also receive additional training in arts integration from state and regional professional development presenters.

R

Rhode Island Alliance for Arts Education (RIAAE)

Through a partnership with the Rhode Island Arts Learning Network (RIALN), the Rhode Island Alliance for Arts Education aims to hire the talent to build, facilitate, and moderate a virtual network as a platform to share arts resources and engage familial, organizational, professional, and social communities. RIALN will move from a website towards a more elastic, dynamic online network meant for formal and informal participation throughout the State and beyond. This Network aspires to provide equal access to rich and challenging arts learning opportunities for all Rhode Island children and youth, in and out of school. By connecting the home, school, and community worlds through which children learn, the Network plans to bring artistic and participatory opportunities to a new level.

S

South Carolina Alliance for Arts Education (SCAAE)

The South Carolina Alliance for Arts Education, in collaboration with the South Carolina Department of Education (SCDE), will develop media arts standards for K-12 instruction, as well as a companion document in support of those standards. In order to accomplish this, the SCAAE will call upon its network of media arts organizations and colleagues, including the SCDE, the South Carolina Arts Commission, the South Carolina Education Television, and the Nickelodeon Theater (a non-profit state media arts theater). Representatives from these organizations will serve as advisors and authors throughout this process, helping to make decisions and determine the content of the support document. The support document will address topics such as recommended facilities and equipment, scope and sequence of K-12 curriculum, lessons plans, and professional development, and will include an appendix of resources to help implement the media arts standards. Throughout the project, the partners will solicit feedback from teachers, consulting with classroom practitioners and field-testing contents. Based on the feedback from the classroom and results of field-tests, necessary revisions will be made at the close of the project, prior to the distribution of the standards and companion support document in 2010.

T

Tennessee Alliance for Arts Education (TAAE)

The Teaching Artist Leadership Retreat is designed to provide a select group of thirty established Tennessee teaching artists with the opportunity for professional development in arts integration, education trends, literacy instruction, marketing, residency development and leadership, as well as networking opportunities. Each topic is designed to improve and enhance the overall profession of each teaching artist, which will advance their services to schools throughout the state. The Teaching Artist Leadership Retreat will take place January 14-15, 2010.

W

ArtsED Washington/Washington Alliance for Arts Education (WAAE)

ArtsED Washington/Washington Alliance for Arts Education will conduct a series of activities designed to strengthen the core assets of its Principals Arts Leadership (PAL) program and expand its reach to a broader population of principals and schools. These activities – the development of which has been guided by the results of a 2008 Kennedy Center-funded comprehensive evaluation – will include the creation of a Principals Peer Forum, the provision of Whole School Workshops (for teacher skill development) at each participating PAL school, the development and distribution of a PAL-focused eNewsletter, and the creation of a Grantwriting Workshop for principals and teachers.