The California Department of Education encourages educators to celebrate the importance of arts education during March in a recognition of Arts Education/Youth Art Month. While the California County Superintendents Arts Initiative celebrates arts education all year, March is a great month for educators to engage with families, communities, and county and district leaders on how important access to arts education is for ALL students in California schools. This is true now more than ever before with the recent passage of Propositions 28 which provides a steady funding stream for arts education.
The California Arts Education Framework Resources for Implementation Hub, includes handouts and infographics that can serve as centerpieces for short but meaningful conversations around key arts education topics such as state and federal education policy, benefits of a standards based education, meaning making in the arts disciplines, and more. These one-page documents can be used in meetings and professional learning events and when advocating for arts education. We encourage you to take a few minutes this month to download these resources and facilitate some conversations about arts education in your community.
As our California arts education curriculum framework states,
“The arts are a necessary and required component for all California students to develop as well-rounded, lifelong learners who contribute to the prosperity and quality of life for local and global communities. An education in the arts (dance, media arts, music, theatre, and visual arts) develops engaged, creative, expressive, responsive, and artistically literate citizens. Artistic literacy is the ability to understand, create, perform/present/produce, respond, and connect through the arts, and transfer knowledge and skills learned from authentic experiences in the arts that transcend historical, cultural, and societal contexts. Achieving literacy in the arts is joyful, inspirational, and creates a lifelong appreciation of the arts; it also prepares students for the twenty-first century workforce and plays a critical role in developing well-rounded citizens. A standards-based arts education in all five disciplines with equitable arts learning experiences available to all students furthers students’ academic goals, increases student engagement, enhances parent and community engagement, and improves school culture and climate.
The California Arts Standards for Public Schools, Prekindergarten Through Grade Twelve Arts Standards (arts standards), adopted by the State Board of Education in 2019, map a pathway for a standards-based arts education in dance, media arts, music, theatre, and visual arts. The intention of the arts standards is that they are equitable and accessible to each and every California student. The California Arts Education Framework for California Public Schools: Transitional Kindergarten Through Grade Twelve provides guidance for implementation of the arts standards.”
