In recent years many school districts have had to restructure their arts curriculums to meet the growing emphasis on standards that is central to most school reform. This unique collection is meant to assist educators, policymakers, grantmakers and other stakeholders by focusing on the potential benefits of arts education for students and communities alike, and providing examples of creative ways school districts are handling their constraints.

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Advancing Arts Education through an Expanded School Day: Lessons from Five Schools

June 4, 2013

In schools across the country, educators recognize the power of the arts to change young lives. They know that students' sustained engagement with enriching, high-quality experiences in the arts promotes essential skills and perspectives -- like the capacity to solve problems, express ideas, harness and hone creativity, and persevere toward a job well done. And yet today, educators at many schools that operate with conventional schedules are forced to choose between offering their students valuable opportunities to pursue the arts and focusing on other rigorous core classes that also are necessary for success in the 21st century. This study, which highlights an exciting new approach, is produced by the National Center on Time & Learning (NCTL), an organization dedicated to expanding learning time to improve student achievement and enable a well-rounded education, with support from The Wallace Foundation, a national philanthropy seeking to improve education and enrichment for disadvantaged children. In these pages, we present portraits of five schools that are advancing arts education through an expanded school day as they create vibrant and inclusive models of truly enriching education for all students.

Classroom Examples

The Arts and School Reform: Lessons and Possibilities From the Annenberg Challenge Arts Projects

March 19, 2003

The three Annenberg Challenge Arts projects (in New York City, Minneapolis, and a national consortium of schools) fostered a civic commitment to arts education in their local schools and communities, which led to an expansion in local ownership and investment in arts education. The report offers insights from arts education for school reform practitioners (build reform from within; make excellence equitable) and lessons from standards-based reform for arts educators (rethink accountability; begin with permanence in mind).

Classroom Examples; Student Outcomes