True Partnership, Shared Design and Evolving Ownership: Building Capacity for Arts Education in Districts, Schools and Classrooms

There is broad interest and support for arts education and many outstanding programs are underway in classrooms on individual campuses across Los Angeles County. But the ultimate goal must be to see entire school districts advancing arts education on a systemic basis. "Arts for All: the Los Angeles County Regional Blueprint" is working to engage school districts and support them as they work to strengthen arts education across all their schools. The Music Center: Performing Arts Center of Los Angeles County is working with several "Arts for All" school districts to support this goal of systemic change.

When arts organizations work with school districts, it is common for the arts organization to present a pre-designed program, seek district approval, and then proceed to implement the program in select schools or classrooms. The Music Center's work with Bassett and Culver City seeks a deeper level of district involvement. Our goal is to draw in our district partners to help design the program as it unfolds. The presence of external partner is valuable to provide the "space and time" for district leaders to focus on these issues at a time when they feel increasingly stretched and burdened. The more the district helps shape the effort, the more likely they will gain a sense of ownership. In times of very tight resources, such ownership is essential to sustain support and forward momentum for any instructional initiative. This paper shares the elements of these partnerships and some of the lessons we are learning.

Everyone is in favor of all kids receiving quality arts education. But in time of scarce resources, arts educators and arts organizations want to be sure their unique role is valued and their status is preserved. This can lead to "turf battles" over limited resources. "Arts for All" believes in the idea of a "shared delivery model." The vision is that classroom teachers, arts specialist teachers, and community arts resources will work together in a coordinated fashion to best support student learning. With this in mind, the Music Center engages a roster of teaching artists to help classroom teachers gain greater capacity to integrate the arts. Ideally, arts specialist teachers will play a greater and greater role as part of this team approach. Yet in the face of horrific school budget cuts, it is unlikely we will see much growth in arts specialist positions in the near term.

In addition to the immediate goal of helping specific teachers gain capacity to teach specific arts lessons, the larger goal of the Music Center is to spark a deeper conversation in each school and district about the value of arts learning and its place in the overall instructional program.

Below we share some of the key issues/challenges in this work and describe the specific approach the Music Center is taking to meet these challenges through our work in the Bassett and Culver City school districts.

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