Music, Visual, and Performing Arts

One of the priorities of the PLCS strategic plan envisions enriching the curriculum and access to information in ways that inspire students, including expanding and integrating the visual arts, performing arts, and music programs into the K - 12 curricular areas as a means to encourage creative thinking.

May 2009 Update: On behalf of the Pt. Loma Cluster Schools Foundation, we appreciate the difficult choices the Board of Education must consider in responding to the budget limitations - especially in light of the budgetary difficulties eminating at the State level. And we thank you, in advance, for all your efforts in making our schools the best they can be!

We don't know the current District thinking in regards to specific programs, but we'd like to reiterate our Strong Support for continued funding for Visual and Performing Arts. A recent survey quoted on the radio indicated that most people would refuse to take $1 million with the stipulation that they had to listen to only one song for the rest of their lives. Please don't cut off the nurturing process - Please help our students grow as creative, intellectual, and spiritual human beings.

“As students achieve in the arts, they participate in society by looking at things carefully, hearing things thoughtfully, and feeling things sensitively. When students have access to the arts throughout their school years, they have opportunities to grow as creative, intellectual, and spiritual human beings.” (California Visual and Performing Arts Framework)

SDUSD is home to a rich variety of innovative and diverse arts programs. The mission of San Unified School District is to improve student achievement. “Research shows students with an education in the arts outperform others by virtually every measure. Moreover, learning through the arts can help level the playing field for youngsters from disadvantaged circumstances.” (Michigan Department of Education)

In addition to continued support, we also request that the Board revisit the decision in March to cut $2,544,221 in funding from the Arts and Music Block Grant and $1,780,000 from the Arts, Music and Physical Education. That decision must have been very painful - but hopefully it was based upon incomplete information. Please note that although it appears that much of the cuts in VAPA funds were from unexpended or uncommitted funds from prior years, the VAPA department does have a plan, as well as school and community expectations, for these funds.

In summation, can you imagine a world without Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Rembrandt, Monet, Michelangelo, da Vinci, or David? Wouldn't you like for your children to hear and appreciate the music of Chuck Mangione, John Williams, Andrew Lloyd Webber, John Philip Sousa, and Rogers and Hammerstein?

Please do not condemn our children to the limitations of mainstream corporate radio or "American Idol".

Please support Visual and Performing Arts for our children.

Thank you for your consideration.

Marvin Estrin

Pt. Loma Cluster Schools Foundation

Chair, Learning Environmen

March 2009 Update: On behalf of the Pt. Loma Cluster Schools Foundation, we appreciate the difficult choices the Board of Education must consider in responding to the budget limitations. And we thank you, in advance, for all your efforts in making our schools the best they can be!

However… we feel the need to advocate for continued funding for Visual and Performing Arts. The recent Board decision to cut $2,544,221 in funding from the Arts and Music Block Grant and $1,780,000 from the Arts, Music and Physical Education may have been based upon incomplete information. Please note that although it appears that much of the cuts in VAPA funds were from unexpended or uncommitted funds from prior years, the VAPA department does have a plan, as well as school and community expectations, for these funds.

Why VAPA should be funded:

· Research shows students with an education in the arts outperform others by virtually every measure

· California State Education Code sections 51210 and 51220 require instruction in the arts

· VAPA is a core subject according to NCLB, and all children are entitled by federal law to an education in the arts

· SDUSD VAPA program is nationally recognized and meets State Curriculum Standards

· VAPA benefits all of our students

· Matching community support yields a 3:1 bang for the buck

Historical Background: The California State Board of Education adopted content standards for visual and performing arts in January 2001. The California State Framework, adopted in 2004, incorporates the content standards for dance, music, theater, and visual arts that all students should be able to master at specific grade levels in California public schools; and defines the five strands of an arts program: artistic perception; creative expression; historical and cultural context; aesthetic valuing; and connections, relationships, and applications. This framework supports Education Code sections 51210 and 51220 requiring instruction in the arts. Section 51210 specifies that the required adopted course of study used by schools for grades one through six must include the visual and performing arts. Section 51220 specifies the same requirement for grades seven through twelve.

The Arts and Music Block Grant is to be utilized for implementing or increasing staff development opportunities, as necessary to support standards-aligned dance, music, theatre, and visual arts instruction; hiring of additional staff, or purchase of new materials, books, supplies, and equipment.

The Arts, Music and Physical Education Grant is to be utilized for support of physical education and visual and performing arts supplies.

SDUSD Visual and Performing Arts Strategic Plan is Ready for Action: The SDUSD Visual and Performing Arts Department has been collaborating with each school to develop a long-range strategic plan for effectively using these funds. The plan entailed a comprehensive process with stakeholders, and includes Standards-Based Curriculum; Instructions and Methodology; Student Assessment; Professional Development; Program Administration and Personnel; Partnerships and Collaborations; Funding; Resources and Facilities; and Program Evaluation.

Current SDUSD Visual and Performing Arts Programs and Resources:

Elementary VAPA Road Shows - interactive in-service for K – 6^th grade teachers introducing the VAPA Standards and basic elements of the four art disciplines: dance, music, theatre and visual art.

Elementary VAPA Lessons - 36 VAPA arts lessons per grade level K-4, 9 in each arts discipline, and are available on the VAPA web site. These lessons are for classroom teachers with little or no background or experience in the arts who wish to provide quality arts instruction to their students. Music lessons and Grade 5 dance, theatre and visual art lessons will be available in the fall 2008.

Lesson Trainings: 3-hour workshops to support teachers in providing quality arts instruction using the VAPA lessons, available to county teachers as well

Teaching Artists: VAPA provides every elementary school one block of in-class teacher training in one of the 4 arts disciplines. Each block trains five teachers, once a week for 9 weeks. Once the training is completed, the classroom teachers will be able to effectively teach the VAPA lessons to their students with minimal assistance. Additional blocks of training can be purchased with Arts Block Grant funding. Title 1 schools are eligible for additional teacher training blocks (grades K-2 only) funded by a State grant.

Elementary Key Concepts and Skills: Highlights key VAPA standards at each grade level and provides examples that show what students are expected to know and be able to do after a year of arts instruction. Found on line at the VAPA web site and used on the Standards-Based Report Card.

Elementary Curriculum Maps: Guide the teaching and learning process by determining: 1) the threads that represent ongoing learning opportunities across the four VAPA disciplines throughout all units of inquiry during the entire school year, 2) the essential learnings that represent bigger ideas/ concepts in creating and responding to the arts, 3) the essential questions that learners ask themselves in order to achieve the essential learnings in creating and responding to the arts, and 4) the units of study that lead to the essential learnings.

Elementary Instrumental Music Programs (year-long): FREE to all elementary school sites

· Exploratory - Instruction provided to top grade (5^th or 6^th) once each week. Students explore four different instruments throughout the year. Music specialists bring instruments for classroom instruction only. Students do not take home instruments in this program.

· Pull-out - Instruction provided to 4^th, 5^th or 6^th grade students on a voluntary basis. Interested students are pulled out of regular classroom instruction two times each week for 90 minutes total maximum. Students have the option of renting or purchasing instruments for this program. There are a limited number of musical instruments for students requiring assistance.

· Full Grade - Instruction provided to all students in the site’s top two grade levels 4^th, 5^th or 6^th, divided between band, strings and choir for one 60-minute class per week. Classroom teachers are released for an additional prep time during this instruction. Three separate classrooms or instructional areas are required for this program. Students have the option of renting or purchasing instruments for this program. There are a limited number of musical instruments for students requiring assistance. Students do not need instruments for the choral classes.

Keys to Achievement Program : an innovative program for grades K- 2, the core of which is a custom developed interactive, self-paced software system, including 20 mini-piano keyboards.

Music Memory: partnership with the San Diego Chamber Orchestra (SDCO) that gives students in grades 3-6 in-depth study of 16 selections of symphonic music per year. The program introduces students to melody, musical terms, definitions, instrumental and vocal tone colors, musical form and historical and cultural significance of music. The culminating project is an invitational “listening bee” similar to a spelling bee for the top scoring students from each school across the District. Live music for this final event is provided by SDCO. Music Memory is available for the students of any teacher grades 3-6 who is trained by VAPA.

Honor Concerts: Provide opportunities include band, orchestra and choral, for proficient and advanced music students to learn and perform challenging repertoire rehearsed and directed by noted conductors, and to experience a high level performance with peers.

Festivals: Provide opportunities for students to process and analyze their performance, be adjudicated by lead educators, experience other student performances and to derive meaning from a comprehensive arts experience.

District Student Art Exhibition: an annual show at the Eugene Brucker Education Center celebrating over 1,000 student artists from across the district grades K-12.

Grade Level Arts Experience Project: 4-prong instructional model to provide every SDUSD student (K-8) a variety of free grade-level-appropriate, meaningful, arts experiences, reflective of the VAPA standards and presented by trained, professional artists and trained classroom teachers. The four prongs include: 1) a teacher training component, 2) classroom student arts instruction and preparation for the experience, 3) a visit to an authentic arts venue, and 4) a return to the classroom where students participate in reflection, making connections, applying what they have learned to other content areas, and helping them to derive meaning from and effectively respond to the total arts experience. Partnerships include: Malashock Dance Co. (grade 1), Classics for Kids (grade 2), the Timken Museum of Art (grade 3), San Diego Symphony (grade 4), Mingei International Museum of Art (grade 6), San Diego Opera (grade 7), and the International House of Blues Foundation (grades 8 and 9).

The MET - Live in HD: a free educational outreach initiative sponsored by the New York Metropolitan Opera. San Diego high school choral students participate in an exciting educational experience that culminates in four Saturday afternoon performances chosen from the Metropolitan Opera’s season to be showcased at two local movie theatres in the San Diego area throughout the school year. The program includes educator guides, curricular activities, teacher professional development, free tickets to the performances and DVD’s of each performance.

Please reconsider your vote and support Visual and Performing Arts for our children.

Thank you for your consideration.

Marvin Estrin

Pt. Loma Cluster Schools Foundation

Chair, Learning Environment

February 2009 Update: On behalf of the Pt. Loma Cluster Schools Foundation, we are respectfully advocating for continued funding for visual and performing arts. We appreciate the difficult choices the Board of Education must consider in responding to the budget limitations. However…

Can you imagine a world without Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Rembrandt, Monet, Michelangelo, da Vinci, or David? Wouldn't you like for your children to hear and appreciate the music of Chuck Mangione, John Williams, Andrew Lloyd Webber, John Philip Sousa, and Rogers and Hammerstein?

“It is through sight, sound, movement, and creative play that we first learn about the world. Throughout life, the arts remain critical to our balanced development as creative, problem-solving members of our communities. Art not only enriches children's lives, it also has a profound impact on their academic achievement. Research shows students with an education in the arts outperform others by virtually every measure. Moreover, learning through the arts can help level the playing field for youngsters from disadvantaged circumstances.” (Michigan Department of Education)

The California Arts Council

http://www.cac.ca.gov/aboutus/strategicplan.php

“Individuals benefit from the arts. Students acquire critical-thinking skills, focused discipline, and improved behavior with an education that includes the arts. Homeowners realize increased property values based on architectural design. Memory-impaired adults recollect elements of their past through musical experience. In general, the arts and creativity are essential to a well-rounded education, stronger economies, cohesive communities, healthy lifestyles and a fulfilling quality of life. The California Arts Council recognizes that without arts education in schools a high percentage of Californians will never be exposed to the arts. Over a generation or two, the intrinsic - and practical - value of the arts could be lost to many, impoverishing our citizens in ways large and small. The Council’s Strategic Plan reaffirms the agency’s commitment to arts in education and emphasizes the importance of sequential arts instruction for grades K-12.”

“The Impact of Music on Childhood and Adolescent Achievement”

Darby E. Southgate, Ohio State University and Vincent J. Roscigno, Ohio State University http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/121639143/PDFSTART?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0

Music involvement has been publicly linked to student achievement—a presumed connection made all the more obvious in debates over cuts to high school elementary and high school music programs. Youth music participation is associated with higher matriculation rates (Aschaffenburg and Maas, 1997), higher rates of acceptance into medical schools (Thomas, 1994), lower rates of current and lifetime alcohol, tobacco, or drug abuse (Texas Commission on Drug and Alcohol Abuse, 1999), and lower rates of disruptive classroom behaviors (National Center for Educational Statistics, 1997)

“Gaining the Arts Advantage: Lessons From School Districts That Value Arts Education”

President's Committee On The Arts And The Humanities And Arts Education Partnership 1999

http://www.michigan.gov/documents/Gaining_Arts_Advantage_11405_7.pdf

Making The Case For District-Wide Arts Education:

Ramon Cortines, Executive Director, Pew Network for Standards-based reform, Stanford University, has been a school teacher and an administrator since 1956.

We know from decades of research that the materials, the activities, the answers that address all these needs are to be found in the arts:

An arts education contributes significantly to improved critical thinking, problem posing, problem solving, and decision making;
As with language and mathematics, the crux of an arts education involves the communication, manipulation, interpretation, and understanding of complex symbols;
Developing fluency in artistic expression and understanding fosters higher-order thinking skills of analysis, synthesis, and evaluation;
The arts are multi-modal, addressing and fostering the multiple intelligences of students (spatial abilities, for example, develop through drawing and sculpture, mathematical-logical abilities through producing and listening to music, kinesthetic or physical abilities through dance, interpersonal skills through drama);
The arts develop a person's imagination and judgment, permitting each individual, in Maxine Greene's classic phrase, to create "as if" worlds, places where we see the world afresh.

The case for the arts is built upon either (1) the intrinsic value of the arts or (2) the value of an arts education's consequences. Both are valid.

To establish the value of an arts education's consequences, its "real world" benefits, many people point to the wonderful skills and habits that artistic appreciation and production help form. Indeed, the arts stimulate, develop, and refine many cognitive and creative skills; they contribute significantly to the creation of the flexible and adaptable "knowledge workers" so many business people say will be crucial to the 21st century economy; and they draw upon and draw out the multiple intelligences of students.

On the other hand, trying to answer the question, "Why should we care about the arts?" from the standpoint of intrinsic value is a little like trying to answer the question, "Why should we care about our health?" The arts, like our health, need no calculus of justification. We engage in the arts, we ought to teach the arts, because this is part of what it means to be human. The arts are fundamental to communicating and understanding not only ourselves, but others. Through the arts we learn to appreciate, and even to create, things of beauty. We know about the ancient Greeks and Native Americans, for example, by the architecture, poetry, and paintings they left behind. We, too, will be known someday to future generations by the art we produce and leave to posterity. I believe that students cannot understand culture, their own or others', without a solid sense of the arts.

Three Ways The Arts Improve Schools:

Brent Wilson, Ph.D, professor and head of art education in the School of Visual Arts at the Pennsylvania State University

The Arts Improve the School Climate. Schools organized around the arts look, sound, and feel different. All in all, the climate is different. The schools the researchers visited were attractive, warm, welcoming, and visually exciting.

The Arts' Comprehensive Tasks Challenge Students. Arts students, with the help of their teachers, undertake big projects. They produce a play, present a concert or dance recital, create an Advanced Placement theme-based portfolio, mount exhibitions. In doing so, students master an enormous number of artistic skills, direct a myriad of aesthetic and expressive qualities toward given ends, and symbolize human behaviors and emotions in a great variety of ways. In artistic creation, means and ends are continually interrelated. Each small element is connected to the creation of a complex but coherent whole work. Students willingly discipline themselves and undertake rigorous practice and rehearsal sessions. They learn physical boundaries and, in the process, learn to see the boundaries in a world that, to many teenagers, appears to be without them. Students also learn to ration their time. They carry the discipline required in arts making to the discipline of study.

The Arts Turn Schools Into Communities. Wherever the research teams went in arts-based schools, they were greeted by smiles. Students, teachers, administrators said, "We are like a family." "We support one another." "This is our place." The occupants of arts centered schools see themselves as members of communities – communities that they have a role in creating and sustaining. They are able to capitalize on the fact that the arts encourage students and faculty members to work together, to create things together, to perform together, to display the results of their efforts together. Teachers are continually modeling their skills, revealing their interpretations, insights, and judgments to the younger members of these arts communities. The arts transform learning and schools.

Pt. Loma Cluster Schools Foundation (PLCS) is a collaborative effort of parents, principals, teachers, and district administrators for the ten schools in the Point Loma Cluster of the San Diego Unified School District. In 2007, a strategic plan was developed to enable the PLCS to effectively support programs that enhance the learning and education of our children and help make them better citizens. One of our priorities in the Learning Environments strategic area envisions enriching the curriculum and access to information in ways that inspire students. This includes expanding and integrating the visual arts, performing arts, and music programs into the K-12 curricular areas as a means to encourage creative thinking. In an economy where global outsourcing is commonplace, students must be prepared to participate in an increasingly competitive job market. In many ways they are in competition with bright energetic, hardworking students from all over the world.

We respectfully request for continued funding for Visual and Performing Arts.

Thank you for your consideration.

Marvin Estrin

Pt. Loma Cluster Schools Foundation

Chair, Learning Environment

February 2008 Update: During the preliminary 2008/2009 SDUSD budget discussion, our PLCS Foundation submitted our request to the School Board that funding not be decreased for music, visual, and performing arts (VAPA). Cuts in school funding from the State could not only prevent this enrichment, it could also result in significant cuts to these VAPA programs as the School District struggles to meet its own priorities with less resources. Our parents spoke with a unified voice strongly recognizing the value of performing arts, and advocating for more, not less. Performing arts also tie into the 3-Rs: Rigor, Relevance, and Relationships espoused by Dr. Terry Grier, our new Superintendent.