A Report from the Michigan Youth Arts Policy Forum
Ryan Shaw
Representatives from a number of Michigan arts organizations gathered in Auburn Hills on August 6, 2013 for an arts education policy forum. Hosted at Meemic Insurance Company and organized by Michigan Youth Arts, the event brought together around 40 people to discuss arts education in the state. In this brief article, I will present the “minutes” for those who were unable to attend.
Marianne Dorais: Michigan Youth Arts Marianne Dorais, Executive Director for Michigan Youth Arts was the first to address the group. After providing some background on Michigan Youth Arts, she presented the findings of the Michigan Arts Education Surveyi.
larly dire when considering that state fund- ing for the arts has been cut more than 90% since 2001. Currently, arts education support is less than a penny per day per student at the elementary level in Michigan. Goulet said that since reliable data are needed to make the case for the arts, leading foundations in the state are partnering to sponsor research on arts and culture. Some of the research initia- tives discussed included the Cultural Data Projectii.
Arts Education Survey. Finally, Goulet shared the Creative State MI 2013 Reportiii.
, and the aforementioned Michigan , which
details economic impacts of the arts in the state.
, administered in 2011 and reported in Fall 2012. In her overview, Dorais discussed some of the most troubling access issues pres- ent across the state. For example, around 75% of schools reported substituting arts-related field trips for in-school arts instruction from certified arts teachers. Also, 12% of high schools reported that they were not currently meeting the state’s graduation requirement of one credit of visual or performing arts.
Jennifer Goulet: ArtServe Michigan Next to speak was Jennifer Goulet, President and CEO of ArtServe Michigan. She opened by talking about the organization’s work, mentioning that ArtServe has three strands of work: acting as the voice for the arts in Michi- gan, making the case for the arts, and support- ing artists in the state. Goulet focused on the role of the arts in providing vibrancy to com- munities, discussing how artists are “agents of change,” and noting the way in which the arts are a part of any locale’s economic engine. Even though these are often-professed beliefs, she said, the arts are not being adequately supported. She pointed to declines in funding at the national level, where funding for the National Endowment for the Arts may face a proposed 49% cut in the coming year. Goulet also noted that Michigan’s situation is simi-
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Ana Louisa Cardona: MAEIA The next speaker, Ana Louisa Cardona, discussed the Michigan Arts Education Instruction and Assessment (MAEIA) Pro- jectiv.
. Cardona, a former state of Michigan arts education consultant from 1998-2011, is an independent consultant who works with the State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education (SEADAE). She discussed how the MAEIA is a project jointly developed by the Michigan Assessment Consortium (MAC), the Data Recognition Corporation (DRC), and the Michigan Department of Education (MDE). The MAEIA project is a three-year initiative comprised of three parts: a blueprint that describes “aspirational broad descrip- tions” of the resources necessary to support “gold standard” arts education programs, an audit tool for school districts to self- assess their arts offerings, and a collection of model arts assessments for students. Cardona mentioned that the context for the project’s genesis was educational accountability in- cluding educator evaluation and the need for state tests in what are traditionally non-tested subjects—that is, all subjects except math and English language arts. Currently, the blueprint has undergone a public review during June/ July of 2013 and will be revised per submitted comments. The audit tool and model assess-
Policy / Advocacy
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