DRAFT CONCEPT PAPER: IMPLEMENTING A NATIONAL ARTS LEARNING NETWORK

PURPOSE
Establish a leadership and learning network of national advocates and experts to effect public
education policy by advancing learning in and through the arts as an essential component of a
quality education for every student.

BACKGROUND
A group of national arts education leaders convened an ad hoc discussion at Arts Education
Partnership conference in Denver, October 21, 2010. The discussion centered on how to form a
strategic leadership network to carry on and implement arts education advocacy. These leaders
agreed that while there is an urgent need for grassroots, local level program implementation and
advocacy, there similarly needs to be a focus on policy advocacy and implementation, sharing
best practices and strengthening the “field” through continued development of leaders and
mentors.

The organizations represented by these leaders have invested more than a decade of work in
developing, piloting and proving education programs and practices that ensure successful
outcomes for every student. Through our individual work, these national leaders have
experience, programs, frameworks and data that show arts-integrated learning is a natural
vehicle for strengthening our schools. Arts learning contributes to identified successful
education reform goals: developing great teachers and ensuring access to high-quality
programs that meet the unique needs of each child.

Access to effective arts learning strategies is considered a core equity issue and, like other
social justice challenges, requires a multi-stakeholder approach to reform. In our communities
across the country, diverse alliances of parent, community, arts education, racial justice,
educator, and other interested advocacy groups have maintained ongoing collaboration and
communication in envisioning and implementing successful arts and arts-integrated educational
models.

As each community works to achieve specific priorities in education reform, we recognize our
combined efforts can contribute to advancing a comprehensive vision for public education that is
rooted in the desire to prepare every student for success in school, career and community. As
our state and national policy makers reassess existing efforts to create great schools in every
community, we feel compelled to contribute to discussions of reform by sharing our experiences
and successes to inform public policy outcomes that have the power to shape our work locally
and influence education systems throughout the country.

PROPOSED SOLUTION
The group strongly favors implementation strategies to move from what has been learned from
successful local programs to bring to communities nationwide better, more effective teaching
and learning strategies and make critically necessary changes in public education. Key to these
efforts is developing and pushing out advocacy tactics, including mutual meta-messaging, in
order to influence policy makers and system leaders.

The leaders identified a real desire and need among colleagues locally, regionally and nationally
to engage beyond program development and implementation, towards influencing policy and
making systemic change. A national professional learning community would allow leaders to
get ‘above the fray’ enough to work together as a field, rather than in our individual silos.
Collaboration on a national level will allow us to aggregate expertise and resources for building
the capacity of schools and districts to integrate the arts and provide ongoing, culturally
responsive instruction to all students. Individual work in policy and advocacy can be directed to
a national community of arts education leaders to leverage and build on that work in messaging,
advocacy and policy priorities.

We envision a virtual, “flat” organization where everyone is a peer and a leader and where we
can share best practices, develop national policy goals and create tactics for implementing
those goals.

We propose to create a communications and professional leadership and learning network that
will:

 Allow us to “unpack” our work by engaging in frank, creative dialogue about our
challenges as well as successes, with room for differing opinions and divergent
perspectives

 Give emerging and existing leaders the tools and supports they need to make the case
for arts learning

 Open the conversation with colleagues in related fields who may have new insights and
innovative approaches that can both broaden our thinking and build collaborations
across agencies and fields that serve parents and youth (e.g., peers in social services,
health, youth development, juvenile justice)

Proposed structure

I. An ad hoc steering committee will be convened to create an initial governance structure and
set annual priorities.

II. Online entity to develop, house and maintain a website, such as www.keepartsinschools.org
(which has developed and maintains connections to the national field and the experience and is
hosted by the non-profit operating foundation PublicVoice), to capitalize on social media to build
an active and robust online community of arts learning leaders. The creation of an online
learning environment will provide support through:
 Podcasts – a series of informative interviews with the leading voices in the arts
education field including nonprofit and government leaders, arts and educators
 Sharing of Advocacy Toolkits with tested practical tips, how-to-guides, and templates for
building support for the arts and arts education in their communities
 Webinars that feature thought leaders, case studies and research and give advocates
detailed, hands-on tactics and stimulate discussion
 Direct the field to important and emerging research on arts learning and related issues of
student engagement, school reform, community building, cultural literacy, etc.

III. General membership participation to build a national learning and leadership network
through:
 Leadership at seminars and colloquia held at existing national conferences and
meetings designed to build capacity; nurture emerging leaders and provide a means for
exchanging ideas, theories and tactics around arts learning advocacy.
 Providing content for and participation in the online community by:
• Identifying and building professional practices that integrate the arts and support
in-school, culturally responsive and relevant curricula
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 • Showcasing ways to utilize the arts as a means for multiple forms of authentic,
ongoing assessment
• Community arts that connect youth, parents and community members in a way
that creates healthy communities and finds solutions to issues of education,
health, transportation and the environment
• Tools for influencing policy on the local, state and national levels and showing
lawmakers that the arts can help communities and regions do more and better in
times of economic constraint and budget crisis.
• Suggesting and leading presentations/webinars on topics of interest for field
building.

PROPOSED NEXT STEPS

 Engage our peers in the conversation about a national unified network wherever we go

 Support seeking of funding for network activities

 Initiate conversation among existing national organizations around ways to how to jointly
advance the field at a systemic level

 Take responsibility for diversifying our membership by bringing in leaders of color and
other under represented groups

 Reach out to involve groups doing youth development, strengthening families, health,
social justice, environmental sustainability, equity, college going culture

Attendees at ad hoc Denver convening:

Erin Offord, Community Specialist, Big Thought, Dallas TX

Gigi Antoni, President/CEO, Big Thought, Dallas TX
Jeffry Walker, Trustee, National Guild for Community Arts Education
Jennifer Hahn, Program Director, Keep Arts in Schools for PublicVoice and Principal, Douglas Gould &
Co.
Joanne Toft, Director, Arts for Academic Achievement, Minneapolis/St. Paul MN
Julie Fry, Performing Arts Program Officer, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
Kelly Pollock, Executive Director, Center of Contemporary Art, St. Louis MO
Mark Cross, Director, Interchange, St. Louis MO
Mimi MacDonald, Dance Program Specialist/Instructor, Center of Contemporary Art, St. Louis MO
Shawna Flanigan, Director of Arts Education Programs, Center of Contemporary Art, St. Louis MO
Marsha Dobrzynski, Executive Director, Young Audiences of Northeast Ohio, Cleveland OH
Michael McCarthy, Regional Director of Admissions, Lesley University, Cambridge MA
Neola Young, Program Coordinator, Ask 4 More Arts/Parents for Public Schools, Jackson MS
Sarah Anderberg, Director, California County Superintendents Educational Services Association,
Sacramento CA
Varissa McMickens, Director, ArtsRising, Philadelphia PA
Louise Music, Coordinator, Alameda County Office of Education/Alliance for Arts Learning Leadership,
Hayward CA
Andrea Temkin, Program Manager, Alameda County Office of Education/Alliance for Arts Learning
Leadership, Hayward CA

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