Don’t forget the Createquity Writing Fellowship application deadline is this Friday, August 5! PUBLIC POLICY AND THE ARTS – FEDERAL The State Department, though the New England Foundation for the Arts, is funding a major new cultural diplomacy program aimed at bringing foreign artists to small and midsize cities across the United States. Alyssa RosenbergRead More
The challenges we face
Michael Kaiser wants us to focus on the reason why we do it (the art, silly!), but I’m more struck by his succinct diagnosis of why arts institutions are in scary times: The development of new technology has given our audience members new forms of entertainment and new ways to spend their discretionary time andRead More
Critical Links: the bullet points
This is the quick-fix version of my essay for the Arts Policy Library about “Critical Links: Learning in the Arts and Student Academic and Social Development,” edited by Richard Deasy. I hope this will give you brief overview of what the Compendium is about, and what I took away from it. “Critical Links: Learning in the ArtsRead More
Arts, Inc.: brevity version
This article is a much shorter version of this. If you want the full force of my verbosity, read that one. In Arts, Inc., Bill Ivey, former Chair of the NEA, makes the case that our artistic heritage is a set of public assets that should benefit all, but instead are often squandered by existing cultural institutions.Read More
Arts Policy Library: Critical Links
SUMMARY The story of “Critical Links: Learning in the Arts and Student Academic and Social Development,” an extraordinarily ambitious collection of research on arts education, begins in 1997, when a report published by the Arts Education Partnership’s Task Force on Research emphasized a need for a review of up-to-date research to help inform program designRead More
Arts Policy Library: Arts, Inc.
This is a long piece. If you’d like the very short version, you can find it here. In Arts, Inc., Bill Ivey, former Chair of the National Endowment for the Arts from 1998-2001 and Director of the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise and Public Policy at Vanderbilt University (more expansive bio here) makes the caseRead More
El Sistema: The Movement
One man’s vision to create an after-school orchestral music education program in Venezuela back in 1975 has inspired cultural organizations and artists across the United States to take action and innovate in music education for social change.
Public Arts Funding Update: April
As you might have heard, public funding for the arts has been under pressure at the local and especially state levels ever since the recession hit a few years ago. This year, those pressures have spread to the federal government as well, and during the recent negotiations between Democrats and Republicans in Congress to agree onRead More
Around the horn: government shutdown edition
Comings, Goings, and Mergers The nation’s three largest composer-focused arts service organizations have announced a major realignment. The American Music Center and Meet The Composer will merge into a new entity called New Music USA, while AMC’s membership and professional development programs will be transferred to the American Composers Forum. This is the legacy ofRead More
Re-envisioning No Child Left Behind, and What It Means for Arts Education
Obama’s Federal Education Blueprint may seem promising for the arts, but we still do not know whether it will shift schools away from rigorous testing to focus on building a complete and robust education for students, with the arts as well as with other subjects.