State Board Appoints Arts Education Task Force

The North Carolina State Board of Education unanimously voted to appoint the Arts Education Task Force members at its Thursday meeting. Senate Bill 66 calls for the Task Force to consider and recommend K-12 arts education policy, implementation strategies, and funding needs to the North Carolina Joint Education Oversight Committee by December 1. The appointees include:

• Helga Fasciano, Co-Chair (NCDPI)
• Mary Regan, Co-Chair (North Carolina Arts Council)
• Becky Bailey, Facilitator (Meredith College)
• Dan Stirckland – Superintendent, Columbus County Schools
• Tony Baldwin – Superintendent, Buncombe County Schools
• Jeffrey Cox – Superintendent, Alleghany County Schools
• Jan King – Principal, Henderson County Schools
• Greg Monroe – Principal, Greene County Schools
• Alan Parker – Principal, Guilford County Schools
• Noël Grady-Smith – Dance Educator, Davie County Schools
• Barbara Geer – Music Educator (Retired), Wake County Schools
• Gordon Hensley – Theatre Educator, Appalachian State University
• Cheryl Maney – Visual Arts Educator, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools
• Jane Austen-Behan – LEA Arts Coordinator, Pitt County Schools
• Catherine Demcio – A+ Schools, Wake County
• Debra Horton – Executive Director, NCPTA
• Pierce Egerton – President, ARTS North Carolina
• Martin Lancaster – President (Retired), NC Community School System
• Senator Katie Dorsett – Co-Chair, Joint Select Committee on Arts Education
• Genevieve Farmer – Member, Joint Select Committee on Arts Education

Four additional appointees are TBD, including one Senator and one Representative from the North Carolina General Assembly.

ARTS North Carolina will keep you updated on all Committee meetings, locations, processes, and decisions. This is our industry's opportunity to make sure that every child in North Carolina has equal access and opportunity to be successful in school because arts education is valued as an essential core subject.

ARTS Education = MORE Than You Think

In today's lead-up to arts advocacy season, consider these things about ARTS North Carolina's Legislative Agenda item to pass a high school graduation requirement in the arts:

• The initiative is fully supported by the North Carolina Arts Council agency and their Board of Directors and the Department of Cultural Resources, Linda Carlisle Secretary. DCR has placed the requirement on their Legislative Agenda and is taking a leadership role in the passage of Senate Bill 66 in the North Carolina House of Representatives in the Legislation Session beginning May 12.
• Because we passed the bill last year in the Senate (SB 66) we are 50% up the mountain.

Passing the requirement would:

• Elevate the arts in practice to a core academic subject as stated in the Learning Framework for 21st Century Skills,
• Insure public education equity because every student has engagement with the arts, and
• Provide more incentives for federal, state, and local support of public school arts programs

The high school requirement is one action step in a comprehensive arts education program for public school in North Carolina. Additional policies to be considered once the high school requirement is passed include a middle school elective requirement, statewide policy for arts education in K-5, higher education teacher training in arts integration, support of A+ Schools, and funding for community and after-school programs that center on arts education.

Students who graduate from high school must have six electives. The law means one "former" elective in music, theatre, dance, or drama becomes a requirement. Additional teachers are not required; hires would now need to include people certified in arts education.

It will take five years to fully implement. The budget will improve in that length of time.

 

Want to Help?

 

• Attend ARTS Day May 18 & 19 and join with hundreds of North Carolinians in speaking to your Legislators about the requirement: artsday.artsnc.org. Registration is now open. Be sure to register by April 30th, as prices go up after that date.
• If you belong to an arts or professional organization, pass a resolution in support of the requirement. A template can be found at www.artsnc.org/advocacy and participants are asked to submit the resolution on their letterhead and attach a listing of their Board of Directors by no later than May 7.

Turn The Tide

Over 1500 people will gather in Raleigh on Monday and Tuesday for the Institute for Emerging Issues Forum on Creativity.  ARTS North Carolina, the North Carolina Arts Council, and the Department of Cultural Resources have all had a hand in the outcome.

 

It's your turn now.  On Tuesday, there will be a powerhouse session led by Governor Jim Hunt entitled Graduating Creativity.  Right this minute, go to this website, www.ncsu.edu/iei , and under the header click on "weigh in".  Be heard.  Let your passions, thoughts, questions, data, research, and keen knowledge help shape the course of this session.

 

You can also live stream the conference next week by logging on to www.emergingissues.org.  Be awed by the convening of thought and creativity that is North Carolina's future.  Arts = Education = Creative Economy is our mantra, and you can be assured it will be uttered frequently next week.

 

Take action now.

What Does It Mean to Have an Arts Experience?

The NEA’s recently released research, Arts Participation 2008, begins with a quote from John Updike:

“Whatever art offered the men and women of previous eras, what it offers our own, it seems to me, is space – a certain breathing room for the spirit.” (http://www.arts.gov/news/news09/SPPA-highlights.html)

Updike’s quote proves my point that people have been blogging for eternity, and we simply have a new medium for dissemination.

And so it is appropriate that my “first” blog post consider the facts of what we didn’t need facts to tell us. Adult attendance at arts events declined for virtually all art forms in 2008. Wait! It must have been the economy. Nope. Participation rates have been trending down over the past six years.

Admittedly, the NEA is still trying to figure out how to measure and compare historical (some would say hysterical) stats with new media. But here’s a fact we cannot avoid: age ranges 45-54, a large component of arts audiences, showed the deepest decline in attendance for most arts events, ranging from -29% to -43%.

The only relevance of this study is opportunity. I will use these stats to justify arts education policy. If you don’t get it early you are far less likely to get it later, and just what does that do for our creative economy? A colleague of mine plans to use the stats to encourage (did I say push?) research and development of new arts applications and technology.

But perhaps the most beneficial use of the NEA study is to tie these numbers like a string to the back of our heads and pull slowly up, out of the sand, to find that room to breath. It’s virtually impossible to live expectantly, think creatively, and lead in innovation if our chins are resting not so comfortably on our chests. When was the last time you had a conversation centered on the study’s fundamental question, “What does it mean to have an arts experience?” There’s no time like the present and no place better than responding here and now.

Karen Wells
Executive Director