Thank you to everyone who sent letters to the California Department of Education requesting the inclusion of language about the Visual and Performing Arts in the state plan to implement Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). We have been in touch with the California Department of Education to raise our concerns about this issue and received the following response from Barbara Murchison, ESSA State Lead at the California Department of Education:

The current draft of the ESSA State Plan, available on the California Department of Education California ESSA State Plan Drafts webpage, does reference the VAPA standards and the state’s intentions to support the implementation of these standards, particularly in the Title II, Part A section of the document.

Perhaps more important, the ESSA State Plan is fundamentally an application for federal funds—not a master plan for P-12 education—and the State Board of Education has directed us to meet, not exceed, plan requirements. The template does not require California to describe how it is supporting VAPA education, so the document already goes beyond what is required to signal California’s...

The goal of the Arts Now Campaign is to establish the expectation that every district is responsible for providing their students with a high quality, comprehensive education that includes a strong arts program, complete with instruction by credentialed arts teachers as well as arts integration strategies being implemented across the curriculum. But how do we measure our progress toward this goal?

This fall we are launching a new, more robust set of metrics that includes both quantitative measures such as number of participants and event survey results as well as qualitative tools such as open ended responses to surveys and interviews.

With the launch of the Arts Education Data Project, arts enrollment data for every school in the state is widely available and easy to use. This provides us with a clear baseline as we begin our work with individual districts and counties. In addition, the Alliance has developed a rubric called the State of Arts Education Survey to measure a district’s capacity to deliver arts education...

Guest Author: Peggy Burt, Senior Advisor, Arts Planning Initiative

The Challenge: How to communicate strategically with district leadership to demonstrate progress in arts education.

The Strategy: Structured, reflective, brief monthly reports to leadership, turning district leaders into arts champions!

The Story: The coordinators of Visual and Performing Arts (VAPA coordinators) as well as other arts leaders and arts educators in school districts often find that their work is well known by some in the district, but almost “invisible” to others.

In an environment where information is often “information overload,” how can we be strategic about getting the facts and the stories to decision makers who have influence around arts education for all students in the district?

A few years back, I had the honor of working as the VAPA coordinator for a small district in Los Angeles County. The superintendent was warm, collegial and very open to communications. I started writing a brief monthly update to keep him informed about all of the progress and successes around...

The California Department of Education (CDE) released last month an updated letter to county and district superintendents outlining the appropriate uses of federal funding, in particular Title I funding to support arts education, signed by Deputy Superintendent Keric Ashley. This new letter reflects a broader understanding of the role of arts education strategies in academic achievement and factors that directly affect academic achievement, such as student and family engagement and school climate. Having a current letter on file is a powerful tool for counties and school districts embarking on this Title I work, and we're proud to see it emerge from our long and fruitful relationship with CDE. Download the letter.