NAfME Is Part of an Initiative Awarded with a $50,000 Grant from the NEA for “Creating a Community for All Learners”

As a member of the National Coalition for Arts Standards (NCAS), we are pleased to share that the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has awarded a $50,000 grant to the Educational Theatre Association (EdTA) to support “Creating a Community for All Learners – Reimagining Standards-Based Arts Education for Equity & Inclusion.” This grant is among 1,130 projects across the country, totaling more than $31 million, that were selected by the NEA during the second round of Grants for Arts Projects in FY 2023.

Creating a Community for All Learners, a joint two-year initiative of EdTA and other members of NCAS, will convene diverse education collaborators from under-represented populations and experts on culturally responsive teaching practice in arts education. Selected contributors will work to craft guidance for inclusive teacher practices as well as discipline-specific recommendations for future national arts standards revisions. Along with EdTA and National Association for Music Education (NAfME), NCAS organizations partnering in the project are the National Arts Education Association (NAEA), National Dance Education Organization, the Media Arts Committee (MAC), and Young Audiences Arts for Learning (YA).

A panel of culturally responsive experts will be pre-chosen, based on recommendations from the partnering NCAS organizations and a review of resumes by grant leadership. Through a process of virtual and in-person convenings, the panel will analyze how the national arts standards could better address the needs and cultural benchmarks of a diverse student population to produce a gap analysis and a report that outlines guiding principles for culturally responsive teaching, along with specific instructional strategies.

“The panel will analyze how the national arts standards could better address the needs and cultural benchmarks of a diverse student population to produce a gap analysis and a report that outlines guiding principles for culturally responsive teaching, along with specific instructional strategies.”

A formal, open call to teachers and teaching artists will be conducted through an application process managed by the participating national arts education service organizations, mindful of the need to select educators of color working in underserved schools and communities.

The project will culminate with the work of a cohort of classroom teachers paired with community arts providers who will apply the guidance and recommendations to create and field test standards-based model lesson plans as a part of a toolkit for all arts educators, bringing the guidance to life for arts educators everywhere. Creating a Community for All Learners will also use a pre- and post-project survey to identify growth in knowledge of standards-based culturally responsive instruction.

Expected benefits of Creating a Community for All Learners include:

Teachers and teaching artists will gain a better understanding of how to use standards-based arts teaching through a culturally responsive lens to ensure that all students have equal opportunity to engage in meaningful learning.
Community arts providers of dance, music, and visual arts education will gain an expanded awareness of the standards and the National Endowment grants program to non-traditional partners.
Schools and their communities will gain a heightened awareness of how standards-based curriculum can help every student participate in classroom-based arts education learning, thereby improving school and community cultural inclusion.

The field of arts education will gain from the analysis and data generated by the project as a precursor to a revision of the national arts standards that will reconsider how the standards can better address the cultural traditions of students who have historically been underserved, whether by ethnicity, geography, economics, or disability.

In addition to our work on Creating a Community for All Learners, NAfME is pleased to take on the role of NCAS Facilitator-Convener for the 2023 fiscal year on July 1. NAfME Assistant Executive Director for Advocacy and Public Policy Amanda Karhuse will lead the monthly meetings and strategic planning sessions and serve as the voice of NCAS in all external communications.