National Campaign to Hire Artists to Work in Schools

SOURCE: http://www.nchaws.org/

An alliance of arts leaders and policymakers in San Francisco convened in early December to launch a National Campaign to promote the use of federal job stimulus funds to employ artists to work in public schools and community centers. The concept has been presented to the Obama-Biden Transition Team and to Speaker Nancy Pelosi for consideration under the new Administration's prodigious Jobs and Growth stimulus package.

As the President-Elect seeks a potent formula to give the economy a serious jolt in the current recession, artists of all stripes represent a cost-effective investment to bring their performing, visual, and technical talents to a variety of school, neighborhood, housing, health, corrections and community development settings.

The National Campaign's proposal draws on the historical precedents of Roosevelt's WPA jobs program and the national CETA Arts Program of the Ford-Carter years. The CETA Arts program was launched in San Francisco in 1975 and then rapidly spread across the country with the encouragement of the US Department of Labor, the National Endowment for the Arts, and many state and local arts agencies.

Particular leverage can be achieved by placing trained artists in public schools where the President-Elect's priority for educational improvement can be advanced while putting more people to work. As such, hiring artists can be a critical infrastructural investment that also contributes to social reform. Art forms like music, theater, dance, mural painting and poetry have demonstrated their ability to inspire students to delight in learning, and bring children of diverse economic and racial backgrounds onto collaborative common ground.

The Campaign embraces the concept of a National Green Arts Corps to provide neighborhoods and community-based artists with the resources, training and skills to use the arts to help communities express identity, build community life and create green jobs. As we put America back to work, rebuilding the nation's infrastructure, artists have a great deal to contribute to the design, building and animation of community projects. For example, artists can help to design and animate elements of community infrastructures such as parks, plazas and public buildings; offer classes and workshops; collaboratively create works of public art; and assist in the development of green businesses.

Community artists are invariably employed in America's large nonprofit independent sector, government's indispensable ally in providing critical services through childcare centers, soup kitchens, environmental and civil rights groups, hospitals, schools, prisons, cultural centers, and faith-based organizations.

A public service employment program for artists can reach into the major urban centers and rural areas in all 50 states, promote local cultural activities and craft industries, invigorate educational reform, and pass the wisdom and talents of an older generation of artists to a new one eager to learn and participate in the economic revival of their home communities. The CETA Arts Program demonstrated success in transitioning many of these artists into full-time private sector employment in the theater, fashion, graphic design, film, animation and entertainment industries.

Arts education also contributes to the economy as high school and college graduates find employment in arts and entertainment. The program will also cultivate new and enthusiastic audiences through participation and attendance at performances and exhibits.

Students will also learn to combine their creative skills with technology, harnessing the power of the internet and the new Web 2.0 modalities of blogs, video, wikis and the social networks to develop collaborative learning projects and hone professional marketable skills.

A recent study by the Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education (CAPE) found that "integrating art in the literacy curriculum not only affected student learning, but also improved classroom dynamics and student behavior." The CAPE model demonstrates how schools can improve significantly through arts integration, teacher professional development, and teacher/artist collaboration. Similar programs across the country have produced similar results using professional artists in the schools, community centers and a variety of social institutions.

In the coming weeks, the National Campaign will be engaging artists and arts advocates in all 50 states in the elaboration of this proposal and building a broad-based constituency to promote its adoption by the new Administration and Congress.