Arts4Youth

Arts for Children and Youth in Greater Philadelphia:
Resources

Opportunities for Employment, Engagement, and Professional Development:

Community Meeting 2008 Materials:

For More Information on Arts Education:

Transforming Arts Teaching: The Role of Higher Education
Dana Foundation 2008.
This new Dana Press book examines innovations in arts-teacher training and features the best practices at 24 higher-education institutions. Also included are proceedings from The Dana Foundation's 2007 national symposium on how colleges, universities and conservatories can enhance arts learning.

An Unfinished Canvas
SRI International 2008.
A Review of Large-Scale Assessment in K-12 Arts Education.

Cultivating Demand for the Arts: Arts Learning, Arts Engagement, and State Arts Policy
RAND Corporation, The Wallace Foundation 2008.
This report offers a framework for thinking about supply and demand in the arts and suggests that too little attention has been paid to cultivating demand. It identifies the roles of different factors, particularly arts learning, in stimulating interest in the arts and enriching individuals' experiences of artworks. It also describes the institutional infrastructure that provides arts learning for Americans of all ages.

Critical Links: Learning in the Arts and Student Academic and Social Development
Arts Education Partnership 2002.
This report explores and discusses 62 research studies that examine the effects of arts learning on students' social and academic skills. In particular, the report connects learning in individual arts disciplines to specific improved cognitive capacities. This information is summarized in the following table: Critical Links Summary Table.

A Portrait of Arts and Education in our Public Schools
Public Citizens for Children and Youth 2008.
A policy brief on the value of educating children in and through the arts and the opportunities to expand this type of education for public school students in the Philadelphia area.

Learning, Arts, and the Brain
Dana Foundation 2008.
Are smart people drawn to the arts or does arts training make people smarter? For the first time, coordinated, multi-university scientific research brings us closer to answering that question. This report advances our understanding of the effects of music, dance, and drama education on other types of learning.

Champions of Change
Arts Education Partnership 1999.
This research shows that learners can attain higher levels of achievement through engagement with the arts. In particular, a grounding in the arts is beneficial for students in low-income groups.

YouthARTS Handbook: Arts Programs for Youth at Risk
Americans for the Arts 1998.
This study was conducted in part by the National Endowment for the Arts and the U.S. Department of Justice. The researchers found significant decreases in crime among at-risk, low-income students who were involved with arts programs. These students also showed an "increased ability to work on tasks from start to finish, which is vital for both educational and vocational success."

Mobilizing Support for Integrated Arts Education National Opinion Research Findings
Douglas Gould & Co. 2005.
This is a guide for advocates based on research into public opinion. It reveals that the public views arts education as creating well-rounded students who are better prepared for anything they do professionally, and suggests that the public is ready for a policy change. The article gives 12 strategies for success in changing policy.

Thinking Creatively and Competing Globally: The Role of the Arts in Building the 21st Century American Workforce
Americans for the Arts, Department of Policy and Research 2007
Describes how the current American education system is built for a bygone era-the industrial economy. The education system needs to be restructured to incorporate critical thinking, creativity and innovation-drivers of the knowledge economy-so that American graduates can out-think and out-perform their otherwise comparably-educated foreign counterparts.

Within Our Power: The Progress, Plight and Promise of Arts Education for Every Child
The New Jersey Arts Education Census Project 2007
A report and evaluation of a state-mandated arts education initiative that, since 1997, has considered the arts among core subjects. It is a follow up to a 1989 report that NJ arts education was in a miserable state, and shows that NJ arts education programs currently exceed most comparable national and state measures.

Arts and Cultural Learning: Changing Achievement and Expectation-- Dallas ArtsPartners
This is an interim report of a three year longitudinal study completed in Dallas. The report summarizes some of the major findings from the second year of the study, which focuses on a cohort of students moving through 4th, 5th and 6th grades, a time when achievement gaps and disengagement from schooling can often begin.