Council of Chief State School Officers

The Arts Education Partnership (AEP) is a national coalition of more than 100 arts, education, business, philanthropic and government organizations that demonstrate and promote the essential role of the arts in the learning and development of every child and in the improvement of America's schools. AEP was founded and is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts and U. S. Department of Education in cooperation with the Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies. Together they are the Governance Committee of AEP. Over its 15 year history, AEP has conducted over 45 national forums on virtually every crucial issue in public education, building through the forums consensus positions on how the arts can and should assist in responding to the issues. The organization is highly valued for its leadership and its major contributions to the field in arts education research. In a time of increased momentum and need, led by the new administration, for quality K-12 education nationwide, the role and importance of arts education as core to a comprehensive, high-quality education needs to be increasingly underlined and made visible and measurable. However, there is very little information on a national basis about the current status and condition of arts education in America's schools. AEP has been meeting with its stakeholders over the past several months to focus on key questions and outcomes of this proposed feasibility study, as well as surveying state education and arts agency personnel about existing and planned research on the topic. Of the 38 states that responded to the Summer 2009 survey, 28 of them had either done research on the status of arts education in the state's public schools, or were planning to do so. However, there was no shared methodology or indicators, making comparison and aggregation of data impossible. A grant to AEP will support a feasibility study coordinated by AEP and conduced in conjunction with the State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education and the Council of Chief State School Officers to explore the development of a 50-state "Report Card" on arts education in public schools. The possible database and summary (report card) would establish a baseline by which changes within and across states could be tracked over time with standard performance indicators that every state could collect with little or no expense. These indicators should be aligned with comparable performance indicators at the district and federal levels. New, $50,000/1; 100% of project budget)