| Arts education is coming back to California schools. After years of funding cutbacks and neglect, exciting efforts are underway to bring back music, dance, theatre and visual arts as part of the core curriculum.
The State of California and the County of Los Angeles have undertaken major initiatives to rebuild standards-based arts instruction. The Los Angeles County Arts for All initiative is helping school districts develop and implement a long-range arts education plan. California now provides $109 million in ongoing funds to school districts, specifically earmarked for arts education.
Schools now have the opportunity to extend their arts programs beyond sporadic enrichment activities to become a central part of the instructional program for all students.
So what does an ideal arts education program look like?
The Music Center created a chart as a “working draft” to help define the core elements of a quality arts education program. We hope to use this chart to help frame planning discussions with our partner schools.
The Music Center can help you determine your school’s starting point, then recommend a plan for achieving sequential, standards-based arts education for all students. In addition to assembly performances and student workshops, the Music Center offers specialized planning and consulting services for district and school-level strategic program planning, arts curriculum alignment and teacher capacity-building.
Where does your school fall along the arts education continuum? And where do you want to go? Download the Arts Education Continuum (PDF) to begin the process of making the arts part of your instructional program.
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