Arts and Culture, Education and Literacy
In the early 2000s, there was considerable discussion about the role of the arts in public education, but little data about the status of arts education in all schools in Minnesota. To answer this need, the Perpich Center for Arts Education launched The Minnesota Arts Education Research Project during the 2010/2011 school year with funding provided by the Minnesota State Legislature through its Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund of the Clean Water, Land, and Legacy Amendment.
The purpose of this project was to gather, evaluate and disseminate quantitative data regarding arts education in the state. The Research Project was designed to document arts education in every school through a statewide voluntary survey, and combine the survey findings with other information to create a 360-degree view of arts education in the state.
This report is a summary of the status of arts education, education policy and delivery. The intent is to provide decision makers and the public with a clear picture of the status of arts education in Minnesota.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America-United States (Midwestern)-Minnesota
Children and Youth;Education and Literacy;Employment and Labor
Eduployment: The bifurcation of school and work, education and employment, college and career is out of date and meaningless. We need to use a both/and rather than an either/or framework in going forward. We call this eduployment.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States
Arts and Culture, Education and Literacy
This report examines the academic and civic behavior outcomes of teenagers and young adults who have engaged deeply with the arts in or out of school.
In several small-group studies, children and teenagers who participated in arts education programs have shown more positive academic and social outcomes in comparison to students who did not participate in those programs. Such studies have proved essential to the current research literature on the types of instrumental benefits associated with an arts education.
A standard weakness of the literature, however, has been a dearth of large-scale, longitudinal studies following the same populations over time, tracking the outcomes of students who received intensive arts exposure or arts learning compared with students who did not. This report is a partial attempt to fill this knowledge gap. The report's authors, James Catterall et al., use four large national databases to analyze the relationship between arts involvement and academic and social achievements.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America-United States
As part of its goal to make quality, sequential arts education a reality in all public K-12 classrooms in Los Angeles County, Arts for All connects school districts with effective tools and resources to improve arts learning. The Arts for All School Arts Survey: Measuring Quality, Access and Equity in Arts Education is the most recent of these tools to be introduced. It was developed to measure access to and quality of arts instruction at the school site level as well as to develop a system for collecting and reporting the data. The results are useful to schools and school districts to find out what is working, what's not working, and to point the way toward improvement. But the results can also provide a picture of what's happening across a region.
The following summary describes how the survey was built and its first test in five school districts encompassing 100 schools. As a result of this test, some refinements will be made in the survey, but the survey's strength and utility have been proven. Los Angeles County now has a means of objectively measuring quality and access to arts education and making the results easily accessible.
August 1970
Geographic Focus:
Education and Literacy;Race and Ethnicity
Clearly class is a powerful cross-cutting factor in explaining postsecondary differences among all students. Yet, controlling for income, race matters: taken together, lower-income AfricanAmerican and Hispanic students just don't do as well as lower-income whites. We find that white students (45%) in the lower half of the family income distribution drop out of college much less frequently than African Americans (55%) and Hispanics (59%).
These lower-income whites get Bachelor's degrees at nearly twice the rate of African Americans and Hispanics and obtain many fewer sub-baccalaureate degrees. In particular, African-American students get substantially more certificates.
Class and race overlap and are most virulent in combination. Along with many other researchers, we find that the reason for persistent racial inequality begins with the fact that African Americans and Hispanics seem to face barriers not faced by whites.
Unequal educational and career outcomes for economically disadvantaged whites can be explained with variables like family income, parental education, and peer expectations. These same variables do not fullyexplain African American and Hispanic educational and economic outcomes. Earlier research shows income effects are more fully explained by observable things, like peer group and tutoring, while differences by race are not so easy to pin down. The preponderance of evidence supports the premise that the disadvantages of race and income must be considered separately in most cases. Yes, differences in readiness and income explain differences in academic and life outcomes; but, independently, so do race and ethnicity.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States
The American Dream is imperiled. Upward mobility, the contract between one generation of Americans and the next, is under siege. Once unchallenged, this nation's primacy in college graduation rates has already been overtaken by committed competitors from abroad. The nation can take great pride in what America's community colleges have accomplished, but the message of this Commission is simple and direct: If community colleges are to contribute powerfully to meeting the needs of 21st-century students and the 21st-century economy, education leaders must reimagine what these institutions are -- and are capable of becoming.
In a rapidly changing America and a drastically reshaped world, the ground beneath the nation's feet has shifted so dramatically that community colleges need to reimagine their roles and the ways they do their work. The premise of this Commission can be summarized in three sentences: The American Dream is at risk. Because a highly educated population is fundamental to economic growth and a vibrant democracy, community colleges can help reclaim that dream. But stepping up to this challenge will require dramatic redesign of these institutions, their mission, and, most critically, their students' educational experiences.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States
Education has always been a key driver in our nation's struggle to promote social mobility and widen the circle of people who can enjoy the American Dream. No set of educational institutions better embodies the promise of equal opportunity than community colleges. Two-year colleges have opened the doors of higher education for low-income and working-class students as never before, and yet, community colleges often lack the resources to provide the conditions for student success. Furthermore, there is a growing racial and economic stratification between two- and four-year colleges, producing harmful consequences.
"Bridging the Higher Education Divide" faces those grave realities in unblinking fashion.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States
Most high-achieving, low-income students do not even apply to selective colleges despite being highly qualified for admission and success at these institutions. Because they do not apply, these students forgo the generous academic resources, increased financial aid, and better collegiate and career opportunities that selective schools offer. To increase opportunities and improve outcomes for these students, we propose building on the success of an innovative intervention, the Expanding College Opportunities (ECO) Project. At a relatively low cost of about $6 per student contacted, ECO sent the following to high-achieving, low-income students: targeted and personalized information on their college options, information on the process for applying, and details of the financial information relevant to their situations. The intervention had a profound effect on their college application behavior, leading to a substantial increase in their propensity to apply to more-selective colleges commensurate with their academic achievements. Not only did students apply to more-selective schools, but they were accepted and matriculated at such schools in greater numbers, and early evidence points to their academic success in these programs. The promising results of this low-cost program suggest that ECO should be expanded. This paper proposes steps to expand and improve ECO to reach more low-income, high-achieving students across the country by partnering with respected third-party organizations such as the College Board and ACT. ECO can also serve as a model for designing and applying this type of intervention to other populations of students. The success of the ECO Project highlights the importance of researchers being able to access relevant government data to design targeted and effective programs and policie
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States
