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Arts in Education—Professional Development for Arts Educators

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2003 Awards

Twenty-one (21) new awards were made in FY 2003.

Grantee Name: Lower Kuskokwim School District
Project Address: Box 305
Bethel, AK 99559
Project Director: Bev Williams
Phone: 907-543-4850
Fax: 907-543-4904

The Alaska Arts Education Collaboration Project is a capacity building program to equip Alaskan educators with the research base and knowledge about effective practices in arts education that will improve motivation and increase student performance in targeted Title I schools. The Project is a collaboration with the Lower Kuskokwim School District, the Alaska Arts Education Consortium, the University of Alaska Southeast and the Alaska State Council on the Arts.

The project is based in the Lower Kuskokwim School District (LKSD) in western Alaska, home to twenty-seven Title I schools and 15 schools identified by the state as in need of improvement. Headquartered in the town of Bethel, the district is comprised of 22 remote village schools (K-12) spread over an area of 55,000 square miles. The villages range in population from approximately 40 to 800. Excluding Bethel, 94% of the population is Native Alaskan and Yup'ik is the primary language. Many students are at risk of educational failure.

From a base in this district, the Project grows into a statewide initiative. The Collaboration Project strategies emerged out of an historical review of successful statewide professional development initiatives. The project design and strategies are rooted in three goals focused on arts integration, improvements in teaching, and student engagement and achievement:

  • Increase the capacity of K-12 teachers in Title I schools to provide high quality, research-based arts education,
  • Increase the performance and achievement of students in Language Arts, in targeted Title I schools through their active involvement in the arts.
  • Train and support a cadre of arts educators as a statewide leadership team, in order to sustain the role of the arts in Alaskan schools.

At the end of the three year grant, 30 teacher-instructional assistant teams from Title I schools in the Lower Kuskokwim School District will be trained in arts integration and will design interdisciplinary instructional units focused on the arts. A cadre of 30 highly trained Teacher Leaders, from LKSD and other targeted Title I districts will facilitate a minimum of 30 professional development workshops and/or credit courses across Alaska, in collaboration with the Alaska Arts Education Consortium.

Grantee Name: Hanford Elementary School District
Project Address: 714 North White Street
P.O. Box 1067
Hanford, CA 93232
Project Director: Sylvia Dorsey-Robinson
Phone: 559-585-2217
Fax: 559-583-0723

The Hanford Elementary School District's (HESD) Fostering Reading through Art and Music (FRAME) project is establishing a professional development program for the arts and an integrated arts curriculum at Jefferson Elementary, Richmond Elementary, Roosevelt Elementary, Martin Luther King Elementary, and Lincoln Elementary.

The City of Hanford, a rural community of 41,000, is located in Kings County in the heart of California's central valley. HESD serves the largest population of K-8 students in the county in its eight elementary schools, two junior highs, and one alternative education site. The majority of the district's students live in poverty (73% qualify for free/reduced meal services). At the five participating school sites, an average of 85% of the students live in poverty while overall academic achievement is low.

The program is based on research on the impact of arts on learning and its effect on students in high poverty settings. This research has provided data that demonstrate how an arts-integrated curriculum can improve academic performance in reading and mathematics, energize teachers, and develop positive student attitudes about their community (Catterall, Waldorff, 2001).

FRAME is organized around the vision of providing opportunities for all students to become responsible, creative, understanding, and thoughtful citizens. FRAME incorporates arts content and achievement standards with California's academic content standards and current educational research on best practices and student learning. The goals of the program are to increase student achievement; to provide high quality professional development and support linked to the implementation of arts standards and arts-integrated instruction; to integrate arts into literacy lessons and other content areas; to bring local artists and arts agencies into partnerships with teachers at all grade levels; and to develop an integrated arts curriculum to be disseminated throughout all schools in the district.

Grantee Name: Alameda County Office of Education
Project Address: 313 Winton Avenue
Hayward, CA 94544
Project Director: Louise Music
Phone: 510-670-4174
Fax: 510-670-4207

The Professionalization of Visual Art Teaching Project (PV ATP) is a strategic partnership between the Alameda County Office of Education (ACOE), the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE), California College of Arts and Crafts CCAC) and three New Small Autonomous (NSA) schools in Oakland, California, which is designed to develop a model for standards-based, visual arts instruction. The overall goal is to propel new thinking in shaping effective strategies that address the professional development needs of teachers in visual art education. PVATP also will foster development of CCAC's new Subject Matter in Art (SMART) program, a pre-credentialing program in art approved this summer by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing.

To achieve its goals, PV ATP will employ rigorous and successful professional development approaches along with the new curriculum development frameworks and visual arts assessment tool developed by Project Zero, research arm of the HGSE. Artists from CCAC and teachers from the NSA schools will be trained in using these innovative educational methods. They will apply the training in coaching and classroom contexts and will collectively evolve teaching, learning, and curriculum development methods over the course of the project, giving shape to a successful model that can be shared with colleagues and the field at the end of the project.

Anticipated immediate outcomes of this project are a cadre of highly qualified art teachers and an integrated art curriculum. The ultimate outcome is student intellectual development and academic achievement.

Grantee Name: California Academy for Liberal Studies Charter School
Project Address: 3838 Eagle Rock Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90065
Project Director: Susan McGreevy-Nichols
Phone: 323-525-0042
Fax: 323-525-0408

California Academy for Liberal Studies (CALS), in partnership with the Galef Institute and the California Alliance for Arts Education, will implement an intensive two-year professional development program for CALS art specialists. The project includes an independent evaluation and national dissemination activities.

The proposed program will use the Galef Institute's Different Ways of Knowing strategy to:

  • Provide rigorous training for arts specialists in standards-based planning protocols for effectively integrating the arts across all curricular areas;
  • Provide rigorous training for arts specialists in research-based instruction and assessment strategies to improve their teaching practices and their capacity to reach subgroups of students identified in the No Child Left Behind Act;
  • Refine training protocols and tools for arts specialists and classroom teachers integrating arts to reflect the goals of No Child Left Behind.

The training will position our arts specialists within the school and community:

  • As collaborators with classroom teachers, by providing learning experiences that are accessible, rigorous, and exciting to all children;
  • As knowledgeable professionals who are able to design and document student work that meets standards in the arts and other content areas;
  • As collaborating partners with community artists in service to high quality arts leaning for students.

The program of intensive training will follow two standards: 1) classroom implementation of Arts Standards; and 2) Arts integration across curriculum.

Training opportunities will include:

  • Professional development workshops and job embedded coaching
  • Study groups, on-line training, on-going support, and networking
Grantee Name: Stockton Unified School District
Project Address: 701 N. Madison Street
Stockton, CA 95202
Project Director: Dean Gorby
Phone: 209-933-7030
Fax: 209-933-7031

Stockton Unified School District (SUSD), a large urban district, that serves low-income families is requesting funds to implement PAVALA TUTTI, an innovation project designed to provide comprehensive and sequential Visual and Performing Arts training and experiences for both district and classroom-level educators and also enrich the educational experiences of students.

PAVALA TUTTI is a collaboration between K-3 classroom teachers and district-wide music/fine arts teachers to develop and deliver instructional lessons and units that meet performance standards in language arts, performing arts, and visual arts. At the center of the project is the district-adopted Houghton Mifflin K-3 language arts curriculum and instructional schedule, to which all training, lessons, and assessments will be aligned.

PAVALA TUTTI is designed to address the specific needs of students attending three high-poverty SUSD elementary schools. Program components include professional development in visual/performing and language arts for music/fine arts teachers and K-3 classroom teachers, Level I Orff-Schulwerk (music /movement) certification for teachers; on-going sustained collaboration between arts teachers and elementary teachers.

PAVALA TUTTI will have a significant impact on a district that has not adopted district-wide arts curriculum, does not include the arts as part of the core curriculum for all students, and currently offers no professional development for classroom teachers in the arts.

Grantee Name: Bridgeport Board of Education
Project Address: 45 Lyon Terrace
Bridgeport, CT 06604
Project Director: Nancy Goncalves
Phone: 203-332-2756
Fax: 203-332-7288

The Bridgeport Public School District and Fairfield University are collaborating to conduct a year-round research-based professional development institute for K-12 music educators. The Institute focuses on the development, enhancement, and expansion of standards-based music education programs for students in a city with a district-wide qualification for Title I assistance.

The Institute has seven components. They are: 1) development, testing, and refinement of a research-based curriculum that will meet the National Standards for Music Education; 2) development and refinement of strategies to increase student achievement in music and other disciplines; 3) identification and use of music that is relevant to urban students from diverse heritages and low socioeconomic backgrounds; 4) development of classroom teachers' professionalism and leadership skills by raising confidence through knowledge, training, and support; 6) provision of basic technology training and instruction in cutting-edge music software programs; and 7) creation and development of opportunities for teachers to share and discuss new methods and teaching strategies with their peers.

Fairfield University is also developing a new certification/Master's program with extensive support from the Connecticut Department of Higher Education. This reinforces the Bridgeport Public School District by providing a convenient place for their current music teachers to obtain a Master's degree and also helps the city by creating a qualified pool of music teachers in the region.

Grantee Name: District of Columbia Public Schools
Project Address: 825 North Capitol Street, N.E
8th Floor
Suite 8034
Washington, D.C. 20002-4232
Project Director: Robert Rice
Phone: 202-442-5599
Fax: 202-442-5602

"Theory into Practice: Enhancing the Teaching of the Visual Arts in District of Columbia Public Schools" is a professional development program offered by the District of Columbia Public Schools in partnership with the American University Department of Art and School of Education. The project seeks to assist visual arts teachers in District of Columbia Public Schools with strengthening the theory and practice of their own art, and to provide them with instructional strategies to create exciting learning opportunities for their students.

This program aims to increase students' knowledge and skills to understand and love art and architecture, and to use the specific ways of thinking and learning in art to increase their achievement in other disciplines. The project will provide DCPS visual arts teachers with an opportunity to explore research-based methodologies for art instruction through graduate study and offers them advanced arts education in aesthetics, art criticism, art history, and architecture, and the pedagogical tools for increasing students' achievement. The aim of the program is to marry art and architecture content, the DCPS curriculum, effective instruction, and authentic assessment. As such, the program will produce a corps of forward-looking DCPS teachers who will be equipped to lead the transformation of their schools with the ultimate goal of increasing students' achievement in art as well as related disciplines.

To meet the goals and objectives of "Theory into Practice: Enhancing the Teaching of the Visual Arts in District of Columbia Public Schools" DCPS art teachers will attend a variety of all day workshops, evening seminars, lectures, and three-week intensive Summer Institutes. The program consists of a total of 16-18 days per year over the course of three years, and teacher participants must commit to all activities in order to be eligible to participate in the program.

Grantee Name: School Board of Highlands County
Project Address: 426 School Street
Sebring, FL 33870
Project Director: Frank Gibbs
Phone: 863-531-0400
Fax: 863-531-0405

Project H-Arts: Heartland Arts Rewards Teachers and Students, seeks to provide professional development activities for elementary teachers that focus on the integration of arts instruction into other subject area content. The Heartland Educational Consortium, a regional non-profit educational service agency with a history of providing high-quality professional development to public schools will act as the lead. HEC is a consortium with six member school districts in central, rural Florida. Project H-Arts will serve schools where 75% or more of the students are from low-income families.

Project H-Arts will focus on professional development for K-5 teachers on how to infuse arts into language arts, mathematics and science classes. The professional development activities will use a technology-based distance learning delivery system, thus making it available to a much wider audience on a cost-effective basis. The professional development activities will prepare K-5 teachers to utilize arts activities to teach reading, writing, math, and science.

An advisory board will provide leadership and a knowledge base regarding resources. It and will be comprised of recognized arts and professional development leaders in Florida. In addition to the project advisory board, a design team will be established. The team will be made up of the Project Director and subject matter experts. The design team will be responsible for the design and development of professional development activities focused on the integration of the arts in the K-5 curriculum.

Grantee Name: School Board of Orange County
Project Address: 445 W. Amelia Street
Orlando, FL 32801-1127
Project Director: Carolyn Minear
Phone: 407-317-3200, ext. 2751
Fax: 407-317-3231

The Orange County Public Schools is the 4th largest public school system in Florida. This year's enrollment is 151,557 for K-12. The Professional Development program in OCPS particularly addresses the needs of teachers who work with students who have a variety of learning needs and styles, cultural backgrounds and often live in poverty.

The OCPS is a minority school district with 43 percent white students, 29 percent black students, 23 percent Hispanic, and 5 percent other. Forty-seven percent of the students served live below the poverty line and the majority of the parents have less than an eighth-grade education.

The University of Central Florida (UCF) has partnered with OCPS to provide training and professional development opportunities for arts instructors. The teachers and students at Rolling Hills and Rosemont, two elementary schools served under this grant, are receiving help in the following areas:

  • A strong mentorship program for teachers;
  • Training from University music educators;
  • Implementation of technology into the daily instructional routine.

The project, Music: Personal, Cultural, Universal, has as its overarching priority the improvement of student achievement. This project was an outgrowth of the Music Education National Conference Symposium, "Vision 2020: Future Directions in Music Education," and was also linked to the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards certification. By providing research-based professional development to teachers in the areas of reflective practice, collaboration, and working with mentors and engaging in music education practice, teachers will be better equipped to address the challenges of teaching these students.

The objectives of this program are to:

  1. Develop high quality in-service professional development modules for music teachers;
  2. Train teachers with up-to-date research base information;
  3. Establish sustained and on-going collaborations between teachers, mentors, and local universities;
  4. Create materials and models to be easily replicated.
Grantee Name: Atlanta Public Schools
Project Address: Center for Learning and Leadership
130 Trinity Avenue, SW
6th Floor C 72
Atlanta, GA 30303
Project Director: Cynthia Terry
Phone: 404-802-2698
Fax: 404-802-1601

The Atlanta Public School system (APS) is the largest urban school district in Georgia. The district employs over 4,000 certified teachers who deliver instruction to 53,485 students. There are approximately 285 arts instructors in the district. APS operates 91 traditional schools serving students in kindergarten through grade twelve and five nontraditional/alternative schools servicing students with special needs.

Targeted professional development is being used to improve teacher's pedagogical skills and classroom practices, and to align arts instruction with the school curriculum. Arts teachers and regular second grade teachers from the participating schools have formed arts teams.

Pre-service arts teachers from Georgia State University and Clark Atlanta University were selected to participate in the design and implementation of this program. The objectives of the (APS) Professional Development program are as follows:

  • Improve lesson planning and instructional delivery;
  • Implement new instructional strategies;
  • Improve academic achievement of the students in the classroom where the program participants are working.

Improving the quality of arts instruction through the mastery of arts standards is supported by the Georgia Quality Core Curriculum (QCC). Professional Development training of arts instructors has been designed to allow students to have a broader base of knowledge and demonstrate higher achievement level through arts projects, portfolios, the Georgia Criterion-Referenced Competency Test (CRCT), and the Georgia High School Graduation Test. References used for Professional Development training included Strong Arts, Strong Schools, by Charles Fowler and Arts with the Brain in Mind, by Eric Jensen.

Atlanta's use of fusing arts with other core academics at Centennial Place Elementary school have shown visual arts teachers using kites to teach math by focusing on fractions and division. Students also have used movement and dance to learn a variety of geometric figures, and KidsPic software has been used to reconstruct faces to create ultimate composite pictures. This has given teachers the opportunity to fuse social studies, geography, and science while allowing students to study the progression of age on a person's face.

Grantee Name: Jefferson County Public Schools
Project Address: VanHoose Education Center
P.O. Box 34020
Louisville, KY 40232
Project Director: Sharon Wuorenmaa
Phone: 502-485-3150
Fax: 502-485-6543

Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS), the 26th largest district in the county, is partnering with local arts organizations to implement the Continuing Education Option (CEO) Arts Project in 31 schools that have at least 75% of their students eligible for free- and/or reduced-price meals. CEO Arts is a four-phase program that addresses a critical need found in all Jefferson County schools-not all arts teachers are "highly qualified" as defined by No Child Left Behind.

CEO Arts is focusing on three innovative strategies to create highly qualified arts teachers-1) an alternative certification course, Continuing Education Option, 2) Web-based courses and tutorials, and 3) professional artists teaching the teachers.

By the end of the CEO Arts Project, 35 teachers from 31 schools will have: 1) completed the Kentucky Education Professional Standards Board Continuing Education Option alternative certification program; 2) produced five Web-based tutorials; 3) participated in arts institutes and professional development sessions, 4) presented professional development at the school, district, and state level; and 5) increased their knowledge of Kentucky's arts (visual art, dance, music, drama/theatre) core content. The goals of the grant are to increase by a total of 10 points, the state-mandated student assessment scores in Arts and Humanities and to reduce by 10 points, the achievement gap between white and African-American students.

Grantee Name: Minneapolis Public Schools
Project Address: 807 NE Broadway
Minneapolis, MN 55413
Project Director: Cheryl Paschke
Phone: (612) 668-5346

The goal of Mirrors & Windows: Minneapolis Arts Educator Professional Development Program is to strengthen arts teaching in order to enable all students in high poverty schools to become more engaged in learning and to meet high arts and other academic standards. This professional development project of Minneapolis Public Schools will provide greater opportunities for arts educators in high-poverty schools to become stronger in their arts fields, and in their capacity to understand and meet the needs of all their increasingly diverse students, with special emphasis on those at-risk of failure.

The project has three goals that aim at achieving a significant, high-quality, and effective program over three-year's time to provide inspiring and effective services support, resources, and collaboration with 95 arts educators in three cohorts resulting in:

  • Improved use and assessment of arts standards;
  • Inclusion of culturally-rich strands in teaching practice and programs;
  • Change in education through interdisciplinary education and teaching practice that accommodates and engages students' special needs and untapped resources;
  • Definitive program evaluation about the program's impact;
  • Identifying, documenting, and facilitating the sharing of specific strategies.

To accomplish these goals, arts educators participating in Mirror and Windows will be guided through a process that increases their readiness to make a permanent, positive change in their teaching content and practice.

The Project will serve approximately 95 arts specialists at about 40 K-12 schools with a 75 percent or higher poverty rate. Participants will be teachers licensed to teach art, dance, music, and theater.

Grantee Name: Newark Public Schools
Project Address: 2 Cedar Street
Newark, NJ 07102
Project Director: William May
Phone: 973-268-5182
Fax: 973-268-5995

The Arts Infusion Project presents a vision for reforming middle level education in the Newark Public Schools through increased and enhanced implementation of the arts standards across all disciplines. By providing research-based professional development of an interdisciplinary nature, the project will make the visual arts more central to the learning experience of at-risk students in ways that will increase student achievement and improve literacy.

By harnessing the expertise of Heidi Hayes Jacobs, Ed.D, a nationally respected authority on interdisciplinary curriculum design, and the exemplary educational resources of the Newark Museum, a major arts education institution and respected provider of professional development, Art Infusion will inspire visual arts educators in implementing the arts standards and will promote integration of arts learning opportunities into other subjects through arts-infused interdisciplinary curriculum units.

Through a series of in-depth professional development programs, gallery experiences, studio workshops, and one-on-one personalized coaching, teams of teachers, who share the same group of students within the same grade level, will be guided and supported as they develop arts integrated curriculum units to enhance and extend learning through visual arts. To provide more in-depth, specialized arts education training, summer institutes will be conducted for visual arts educators. Teachers will be actively challenged to use what they have learned to shape the direction, content, and activities of the arts integrated curriculum. From an initial group of 50 teachers, representing 10 schools, additional teams from these same schools will join the programs in years two and three. The project will yield tangible outcomes through the 60 arts integrated curriculum units positively impacting 3,000 students.

Grantee Name: Poughkeepsie City School District
Project Address: 11 College Avenue
Poughkeepsie, NY 12603
Project Director: Dr. Helen Blankenship
Phone: 845-451-4985

The Poughkeepsie City School District with a poverty rate of 76 percent, and BOCES, a state agency that provides professional education for teachers and school districts have embarked on an initiative called Middle Papaya.

This project will move the district from a traditional curriculum to one based on an integrated performing arts, project model. The after-school programming is designed to complement this model.

The project goals include:

  1. Engaging and motivating teachers to participate in creating a paradigm shift to arts-based learning;
  2. Building upon professional development initiatives already underway and providing opportunities and resources for effective professional development;.
  3. Offering teachers and other stakeholders opportunities to learn about, participate in, and develop a passion for the arts along with their students.
Grantee Name: McCurtain County Educational Co-op/McCare
Project Address: 103 Northeast Ave. A
Idabel, OK 74745
Project Director: Steve Daniel
Phone: 580-286-3344
Fax: 580-286-5598

McCurtain County is a local education agency in rural Southeastern Oklahoma. McCare has formed a collaborative partnership with the Oklahoma Arts Council, The University of Central Oklahoma, the Oklahoma State Department of Education and Oklahoma's A+ Schools to implement Southeastern Oklahoma Arts Reform Project (Project Soar).

McCare has engaged a diversified cadre of qualified teachers, professors, and artists to serve as consultants and trainers. As a result of the training, the teachers' increased skills and knowledge will enable them to develop a product: an educational program composed of interdisciplinary thematic units that will be content-based, integrated into the curriculum and aligned with state standards.

The goal for project SOAR is to integrate an arts education program into the framework of an overall school reform effort aimed at improving student academic achievement in the state mandated testing program through ongoing comprehensive professional development. Project SOAR will improve teaching and student achievement through the following objectives:

  • Develop and implement a research-based professional development plan for teachers in 39 school sites to integrate arts into the four core areas;
  • Create exemplary interdisciplinary thematic units to improve student academic achievement in the four core areas;
  • Develop a website to share interdisciplinary thematic units aligned to state standards, PASS, and National Arts Standards.
Grantee Name: Portland Public Schools PPS Dist. #1 Multnomah County
Project Address: PO Box 3107
Portland, OR 97208
Project Director: Carol Egan
Phone: 503-916-5840

ARTSplash, will establish an innovative and sustainable professional development model designed to accelerate the implementation of a sequential, standards-based art education program in grades preK-5; develop a cadre of arts education mentors and district leaders; increase teachers' content knowledge and ability to provide standards-based instruction and assessment in music, drama, and the visual arts; create an electronic archive of both arts-centered and integrated curriculum units in each discipline. The curriculum units will be developed and implemented by teachers in classrooms serving a significant proportion of students from low-income families. They will be aligned with academic benchmarks and local school improvement goals for raising student achievement.

A team of three teachers from each of 12 low-income elementary schools will attend in-depth monthly professional development during the academic year. Each teacher will be linked with an arts-specialist mentor coach; approximately 90 teachers and administrators will attend an annual five-day summer institute, a set of over 100 preK-5 curriculum units will be reviewed, archived, and shared. They will be focused on meeting established benchmark standards in the arts or on integrating the arts into other content areas. Connections among the schools, arts organizations , professional artists, and higher education will be strengthened.

A website and archive, maintained by the Portland State University Graduate School of Education, will support ongoing networking and dissemination of research-based best practices. Population Served: teachers, administrators, and students at 12 Title 1 elementary schools, where the percentage of the enrollment eligible for the free and reduced-price lunch program ranges from 75 percent to 100 percent the average being approximately 85 percent.

Grantee Name: Florence School District No.3
Project Address: PO Drawer 1389
125 S. Blanding Street
Lake City, SC 29560
Project Director: Dave Altus
Phone: 803-734-3079
Fax: 803-734-4064

Florence School District Three, in partnership with the South Carolina Department of Education, the University of South Carolina, Converse College, and Columbia College, proposes to offer technology-rich professional development for arts educators in all 247 eligible public schools in the state. High intensity institutes in visual arts (University of South Carolina, Columbia), music (Converse College, University of South Carolina at Columbia), and dance (Columbia College) will be offered.

Each teacher attending one of the institutes will receive a new multimedia computer, software, and peripheral equipment unique to their arts specialty. Pre-institute coursework will use web-based reading assignments and web-based discussion groups hosted on a web server that will be set up for each course. This aspect of the project will enable teachers to gain experience in using a virtual "blackboard" program, as well as gain a sense of the many applications for computer technology in the visual and performing arts.

During each five-day residential institute, teachers will learn to use computer technology within the context of the arts classrooms. Emphasis will be placed on establishing the connection between technology as an instructional tool and state-adopted South Carolina Visual and Performing Arts Frameworks and the attendant South Carolina Visual and Performing Arts Curriculum Standards. These two documents outline what every child should know and be able to do in an arts-rich curriculum.

The project will be evaluated using data from the South Carolina Palmetto Achievement Challenge Test (PACT), the states' high-stakes achievement test for grades three through eight. A repeated measure, Analysis of Variance, will be used to test for statistically significant difference in language arts and mathematics achievement between students in arts-rich and arts-poor classes.

Grantee Name: Greenville County School District
Project Address: 301 Camperdown Way
P.O. Box 2848
Greenville, SC 29602
Project Director: Roy Fluhrer
Phone: 864-241-3330
Fax: 864-241-3502

This project is developing a long-range, comprehensive professional development program focused on the planning and implementation of standards-based curriculum using arts integration methods. The project uses the arts to enhance the curriculum in all core subjects to raise the level of student behavior and academic performance.

A primary component of the project is training in methods that galvanize teachers and students. Through two other projects funded by the U.S. Department of Education-the Tanglewood Project and the Tanglewood Arts Integration Training Institute (TAITI)--the needs of the low-performing Tanglewood Middle School are addressed through the implementation of an arts-integrated curriculum. Tanglewood Middle School teachers and area professional artists are trained through the TAITI, then teacher/artist teams plan and execute arts-integrated units based on the state academic and achievement standards. To sustain, expand, and replicate the training and methods used at TAITI, the Greenville County Arts Integration Training Institute (GCAITI) will be established for all elementary and secondary Title I schools.

An additional part of the School District of Greenville County Professional Development Project is the continuous professional development in standards-based, arts-integration techniques available to Greenville County teachers throughout the school year.

Project Goals include:

  1. To expand the single school, Tanglewood Arts Integration Institute, into a countywide Greenville County Arts Integration Training Institute that will serve as the vehicle for training teachers in Title I schools and area professional artists in the effective use of the arts as a method of instruction in classrooms.
Grantee Name: Houston Independent School District
Project Address: 3830 Richmond Avenue
Houston, TX 77027
Project Director: Annetra Piper
Phone: 713-892-6818
Fax: 713-892-6188

The Literacy Education Employing Kodaly Strategies Project (LEEKS) is based on research that shows the contributions of the Kodaly approach to music in developing concentration, memory, abstract thinking, and imagination as well as emotional stability. Social and language skills have also been shown to be enhanced through music. (Forrai, 1976).

Project LEEKS is designed to increase the content knowledge of music teachers, as well as instruction in how they can develop a sequential program of instruction from lesson to lesson and year to year. The aim is to increase the musicianship of the individual teachers and provide the teachers with a cognitive approach to teaching music through sequential planning and activities that focus on emergent musical literacy and music literacy goals.

The project is designed to:

  1. Increase the emergent music literacy and music literacy skills of students based on the Kodaly concept.
  2. Increase the emergent literacy and literacy skills of students, ages 4-14, in at-risk environments.
  3. Implement an effective research-based, replicable K-12 music educators' professional development model.
  4. Increase the technological skills of teachers by providing professional development.

Project LEEKS serves 60 music teachers from schools that qualify as Title I. LEEKS provides a minimum of 94 hours each year of research-based professional development in the effective use of teaching techniques and strategies based on the Kodaly concept of music education. Participating music educators attain music content knowledge to meet the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills. They also attain content knowledge of the National Standards for Music Education and the pedagogy to effectively teach them.

The collaborating partners in Project LEEKS are Southwest Texas State University Kodaly Certification Program and the Houston Independent School District.

Grantee Name: Northside Independent School District
Project Address: 5900 Evers Road
San Antonio, TX 78238
Project Director: James Miculka
Phone: 210-706-8649
Fax: 210-706-7260

This grant is to the Northside Independent School District (NISD), on behalf of its 12 Title I elementary schools. The project goal is to develop model fine arts programs that are process-oriented and student-centered through the professional development of master-level arts teachers. Teachers and students from 12 NISD Title I elementary schools are participating in the SEFA Program.

The SEFA program objectives support:

  • The intellectual and leadership professional development or continuing education for teachers;
  • The deliberate exposure to community fine arts to meet and exceed student needs;
  • Initiatives for student achievement and involvement;
  • Access to technological arts instruction; and
  • The dissemination of information.

This project fosters partnerships already established with the following local arts and higher education institutions: the San Antonio Symphony, the San Antonio Museum of Art, the Southwest School of Art and Craft, the Witte Museum, the McNay Art Museum, the San Antonio Children's Museum, and the School of Music at Southwest Texas State University.

The SEFA Program: 1) provides teachers with the opportunity to benefit from high quality, ongoing professional development in music and visual arts, and 2) provides students from high poverty schools access to an improved fine arts education through enriched activities and increased exposure to the arts and the local arts community. The program thus enhances the implementation of arts education and promotes the integration of arts instruction in other subject areas.

Grantee Name: Milwaukee Public Schools
Project Address: 5225 W. Vliet St.
Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53208
Project Director: Barry Applewhite
Phone: 414-475-8050
Fax: 414-475-8277

Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) will implement the Professional Arts Development in our Schools (PADS) initiative serving 50 elementary and K-8 schools to serve as a model for integrating arts education into urban educational reform. MPS, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Milwaukee Arts Museum, the Department of Public Instruction, Techniques Music Academy, Haggerty Art Museum, and the Florentine Opera are working in partnership to improve the educational performance and future educational potential of students in high poverty, low performing schools.

The following objectives will guide this initiative:

  • Increase cross-curricular integration of the arts curriculum into core curricular subject matter
  • Increase students' exposure to arts
  • Increase and improve teacher collaborative lesson planning among core subjects teachers
  • Strengthen comprehensive art partnerships between schools and visual arts/music/dance

The project outcomes include:

  • Provide professional development on how to integrate arts into curriculum modules and class activities to classroom teachers
  • Expand professional alliances using artist-in-residence from partnership community agencies as well as other state and national resources
  • Increase the number of arts related opportunities for students by 75% at each school
  • Expand after school arts programming for the target population community utilizing Community Learning Centers

 
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Last Modified: 08/31/2006