Dawn Ellis and her team scoured the country for exemplary professional development programs in arts education to inform the content of the handbook and create a searchable database of 50 model programs. The handbook is both a guide and a reference resource for arts coordinators, principals, superintendents of instruction and anyone who designs professional development for K-12 arts education. It synthesizes documents, interviews, responses from outstanding practices in the field as well as literature regarding professional development and arts education. The programs profiled, which cover a wide range of partnership types, were selected because they

• Address the scale, scope, or perspectives of school districts
• Provide evidence of evaluation, research, and/or reflective practice
• Provide insights into approaches relevant to a variety of communities, students, and arts disciplines, or
• Involve education reform that includes a strong arts component