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:
Arts and Culture;Education and Literacy
This infographic and accompanying text shows that low-income students who are highly engaged in the arts are more than twice as likely as their peers with low arts involvement to have earned a Bachelor's degree.
August 1970
Geographic Focus:
Arts and Culture;Education and Literacy
As we enter the 21st century -- the global information age -- we must ensure our students are equipped to thrive in an environment that will require them to be able to shift their thinking and remain open to learning throughout their lives. Flexibility, innovation, improvisation and the ability to communicate across diverse cultures are skills crucial to future success. The arts are the most efficient way to teach those skills. By working to include and sustain the arts as part of a comprehensive K-12 curriculum, we allow students to cultivate the crucial skills they will need to function in a 21st century world.
Arts for All is a dynamic, county-wide collaboration working to create vibrant classrooms, schools, communities and economies through the restoration of all arts disciplines into the core curriculum for each of our 1.7 million public K-12 students. One of the key strategies to ensure high quality arts education is to improve the quality of teaching and learning. We believe that when we help build the skills, knowledge, and confidence of the people who provide arts instruction to students, they are able to translate district policies and plans into high quality student learning. Practical tools and partnership opportunities promote the collective responsibility of classroom teachers, arts teachers, and artists to deliver high quality arts education. The on-going development of teachers and artists increases their ability to raise the quality of arts education.
On Friday, May 7, 2010, Arts for All in partnership with California State University at Northridge, hosted the Arts for All Higher Education Think Tank. This event brought together decision makers throughout the education community to begin to discuss how to strategically address quality arts education in teacher preparation programs in order to impact teacher practice and student learning. Over 60 people attended representing 13 institutions of higher education, 3 foundations, 6 school districts and partners from the Los Angeles County Office of Education, Orange County Office of Education and the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing.
This report is a transcript of those proceedings.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States (Western) / California / Los Angeles County
Children and Youth, Education and Literacy, Employment and Labor
India's young population and productive workforce are a remarkable asset to the country, but large gaps in the education sector hinder it from realizing the true potential of this gift. Where are the needs and how can donors help?
August 1970
Geographic Focus: Asia (Southeastern)-India
Education and Literacy;Parenting and Families
Between America's long-standing national objective of improving the strength of the public school system to prepare students for college and careers and the focus of the Obama administration on education as a pathway to economic security for the middle class and improving the economy, education issues and policy are in the spotlight. A central focus of the policy discussion is the measurement of quality and the utilization of quality data to improve student outcomes. This quality-focused policy agenda covers a range of high-profile issues, from standardized testing to teacher evaluation to early childhood education, and involves a range of stakeholders.
While regular survey research is conducted with a variety of stakeholders, including teachers, very few nationally representative surveys of parents have been conducted recently. Often cited as a key determinant of student outcomes, parents represent an important perspective that policymakers need to understand in the design, articulation, and implementation of quality-focused education initiatives.
This study provides a comprehensive description of parents' perspectives on education in America today, with a specific focus on understanding what quality education and teaching means to parents and how it should be measured and rewarded.
With funding from the Joyce Foundation, the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research conducted a national survey of 1,025 parents or guardians of children who completed a grade between kindergarten and 12th during the 2012-2013 school year.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States
Just as postsecondary education is becoming increasingly vital to getting a good job and entering the middle class, college costs are rising beyond the reach of many New Yorkers. State policy decisions have played a significant role in this rise by shifting costs onto students and families though declining state support. New York's investment in higher education has decreased considerably over the past twenty years, and its financial aid programs, though still some of the country's most expansive, fail to reach many students with financial need. Students and their families now pay -- or borrow -- much more than they can a!ord to get a higher education, a trend which will have grave consequences for New York's future economy
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States (Northeastern) / New York
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
