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Arts Education Plan 2012
The process to craft the first-ever CPS Arts Education Plan was initiated in early 2012. The goal was to create a policy and programming blueprint for increasing access, equity and the quality of arts education provided to CPS students.
Overview of 2012 Plan
- Brief introduction to the purpose and significance of the 2012 CPS Arts Education Plan.
- Outline the key objectives and goals of the 2012 plan.
- 2012 Plan Document
Accomplishments from 2012 Plan
- Detail the achievements and milestones reached under the previous CPS Arts Education Plan (2012).
- Showcase success stories, data, and testimonials that demonstrate the impact of arts education initiatives.
- Include quantitative data on student participation, academic performance, and community engagement.
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Create district-level policies that support the arts in every child’s PreK-12 education experience and create conditions throughout the district that utilize the arts to support student success.
The Board of Education’s approval of the Plan immediately set the recommendations of this Goal into action and considerable progress has been made on implementing them on the ground. That said, each year, a school’s capacity to see the recommendations through is dependent on annual budgets, course scheduling, and competing priorities. With that in mind, all but recommendation C are considered ongoing.
Recommendation Goal Status Impact A Make arts a core subject by dedicating 120 minutes of arts instruction per week for elementary schools. Ongoing The Board of Education’s approval of the Plan immediately set this recommendation into action. B Expand the number of art forms offered to include visual art, music, dance, and drama at all grade levels. Ongoing With the November 14, 2012 Resolution Approving the 2012-2015 CPS Arts Education Plan, the definition of fine arts content areas was expanded to include visual art, music, dance and theatre. C Expand high school graduation requirements to include all four Illinois recognized art forms. Fully Implemented With the November 14, 2012 Resolution Approving the 2012-2015 CPS Arts Education Plan, the Board’s Policy on the Minimum High School graduation Requirements was amended to require a combination of two of four content areas: visual art, music, dance and theatre. D Set minimum staffing requirements in the arts at one certified full-time employee per school, or an improved ratio such as one teacher for every 350 students. Ongoing There has been a 43% increase in the number of schools meeting the 1:350 recommended arts staffing ratio, from 51% to 73%. E Identify and activate an “Arts Liaison” in every school and net- work for improved coordination and communication in the arts. Ongoing 90%+ of CPS schools complete the Creative Schools Survey via an Arts Liaison, from 53% to 90%+. -
Ensure district arts curriculum, instruction, and assessment is consistent, supports arts learning pathways from PreK-12 and utilizes both direct arts instruction and arts integration strategies.
While most of these recommendations were implemented or completed, district policies and assessment shift as circumstances in the state, city, and district change. Recommendation D became inapplicable, as the CIWP is no longer tied to a school’s budget, and thus is not a strong indicator of a school’s prioritization of the arts. The creation of policy-level support at the district, state, or federal level for these recommendations are always in progress and will vary from one school year to the next.
Recommendation Goal Status Impact A Map and align arts curriculum to the Common Core State Standards in order to support high school graduation, college entry, college graduation, and career readiness. Fully Implemented In Fall 2017, the CPS Department of Arts Education released the Arts Content Framework, which will served as resource for schools to continually work towards recommendation. The CPS Department of Arts Education also created Standards Crosswalks to compare Anchor Standards in the Arts to Common Core Standards for English Language Arts and Math. B Align the “Chicago Guide for Teaching and Learning in the Arts” to the forthcoming Core Arts Standards. No longer applicable The Chicago Guide is no longer fully applicable to arts learning in Chicago Public Schools, as it was developed using now expired learning standards. C Add additional art forms (i.e. media arts) to the curriculum in the “Chicago Guide”. No longer applicable The Chicago Guide is no longer fully applicable to arts learning in Chicago Public Schools, as it was developed using now expired learning standards, however media arts was added to the CPS Department of Arts Education’s Curriculum Alignment Diagnostic Tools. D Require that the arts be represented on each school’s Continuous Improvement Work Plan (CIWP). No longer applicable CIWP is no longer tied to a school’s budget, and thus is not a strong indicator of a school’s prioritization of the arts. -
Provide relevant professional development for all stakeholders to build their capacity for improving student learning in and through the arts; and develop strategies to address the district’s challenges to arts education.
Professional learning opportunities for community providers and principals have been increased and enhanced since the Plan’s inception; sustaining these increases will required continued effort and support.
Recommendation Goal Status Impact A Create a system for identifying professional development needs and growth areas in the arts. Ongoing In June 2017, Ingenuity and CPS Department of Arts Education began jointly producing a catalog with all professional learning events, including district-wide professional development, Arts Liaison training, the first jointly produced Arts Education Conference. Both of the initiatives stopped during the pandemic. B Offer consistent and relevant professional development to all CPS stakeholders, including teachers, principals, chiefs of schools, parents, and arts partners. Ongoing Professional learning opportunities for community providers, principals, and educators have been increased and enhanced since the Plan’s inception; sustaining these increases require continued effort and support. C Develop “ArtSmart School designation” to provide school- and network-level guidelines and structures that will support principals planning for and implementing the arts both in and out of their school day. Fully Implemented In the 2013-2014 school year, the arts were for the first time added to the CPS school progress report cards alongside other core academic content areas. The Creative Schools Certification remains the centerpiece of the CPS Arts Education Plan and the Creative School Initiative.
In school year 2021-2022, schools begin to receive an annual Creative Schools Roadmap, a tool for arts planning and evaluation based on their Creative Schools Certification score.
There has been a 166% increase in schools rated strong or excelling in the arts, from 29% to 69%.
D Identify opportunities to tie arts education to college and career readiness as well as workforce standards. Ongoing CPS redesigned its Advanced Arts as the RE:ALIZE, an early college program created in partnership with the CPS Department of Arts Education, Columbia College Chicago & Wells Community Academy High School that provides a two-year sequence of coursework in Visual and Theatre Arts. E Write and disseminate “School Leadership Guide in the Arts” to establish a common vocabulary and understanding in the arts. Fully Implemented In 2013-14, CPS launched the Creative Compass program, a peer- to-peer principal arts mentoring program that is currently available to select schools. The district
also issued additional guidance regarding arts staffing to principals in the annual Budget Guidance Document. -
Facilitate and support strategic partnerships and collaborations in the arts, built upon quality indicators, to enhance student learning at all levels and celebrate and honor student voice, culture, and traditions.
Through tools such as artlook® Map and opportunities like Ingenuity Summits that bring teachers together with partners, Ingenuity is addressing the facilitation of strategic partnerships. The spirit of recommendation A is being met through the design and launch of the Quality Framework and Toolkit instead of the originally proposed request for proposal process. The Quality Framework and Toolkit are products of the ongoing Quality Initiative, which includes intensive community outreach across the entire arts education sector.
Recommendation Goal Status Impact A Design and implement an RFP process that supports and elevates the quality of programs provided by arts partners and independent teaching artists. Fully Implemented CPS released a Request For Qualifications (RFQ) in 2013-14 and again in 2020-2021 to pre-qualified providers of in-school-time arts education services.
As part of the ongoing Quality Initiative, in April 2018, Ingenuity published the Quality Framework and Toolkit to support the quality of programs provided by arts partners and independent teaching artists.B Match at least one arts partner to every school in collaboration with an arts teacher, classroom teacher, or other content area teacher. Ongoing Historically, upwards of 90% of CPS schools have an arts partnership. C Design and implement a coordinated public/private strategy that will improve delivery of resources, opportunities, and partnerships at the school level through the new Arts Liaisons. Fully Implemented In response to the Arts Education Plan Goals, the Creative Schools Fund (CSF) was established in 2013 by Ingenuity with dedicated funding from private and philanthropic donors. In 2018, CSF evolved to its current funding model, made up of sizable contributions from public and private entities, including Chicago Public Schools, the Mayor’s Office of Chicago, local arts funders, and Ingenuity to enable successive Mayors to combine city investments and private dollars in support of City and District goals related to arts in schools over time. CSF investments have totaled almost $20M since 2013, supporting over 450+ schools and over 240,000+ students. -
Build sustainable system infrastructure to track, analyze, and disseminate standardized data on arts instruction and programming.
A new version of Ingenuity’s artlook® Map continues to collect and disseminate data on the arts in schools, as well as community arts offerings. Currently, the arts are included on the School Report Card through the Creative Schools Certification, and efforts to include other arts indicators in the Every Student Succeeds Act and the School Quality Rating score are in progress.
Recommendation Goal Status Impact A Create a system to track elementary school-level arts data. Fully Implemented Ingenuity tracks progress through artlook®Map. Data is used to identify each school’s positioning along the Creative Schools Certification continuum, and provides a clear picture of the distribution and availability of arts education throughout the district. Ingenuity annually reports on these data via it’s State of the Arts in Chicago Public Schools report. B Include the arts on measures of school success (i.e. principal evaluations) and in internal tracking mechanisms (i.e. staffing, courses, and additional benchmarks). Ongoing CPS added a question regarding arts education provision to the principal evaluation form in SY 13-14. The form was completed by Local School Councils (LSCs). No further progress was made on this recommendation. C Measure reach, implementation, and effectiveness outcomes of arts partnerships so that schools can determine “quality” partnerships. Ongoing In SY 17-18, Ingenuity released The Arts Partner Standards of Practice, a diagnostic tool for organizations and teaching artists that articulated a vision for quality teaching and learning in the arts. The APSP contains focus areas, elements and characteristics of practice which teaching artists and organizations can use as a guide for self-evaluation. Although not mandated, various arts education stakeholders use APSP to help determine partner readiness, capacity, and program quality. D Integrate the arts into the school scorecard with multiple indicators, FAQs, an information portal, and a summary of data. Fully Implemented The Creative Schools Certification was placed on the publicly available CPS School Report Card alongside other academic content areas beginning with the fall 2013-14 Report Card, which reflected 2012-13 school year data. Both the CPS website and Ingenuity’s Map provide information on the rubric and data summaries for schools, as does this report in the list of CPS schools and their CSC. E Create an assessment system that qualitatively and quantitatively captures, measures, and communicates arts learning outcomes that recognizes the uniqueness of art and student learning. Ongoing In Fall 2017, the CPS Department of Arts Education released the Arts Content Framework, which will served as resource for schools to continually work towards recommendation. The CPS Department of Arts Education also created Standards Crosswalks to compare Anchor Standards in the Arts to Common Core Standards for English Language Arts and Math. This work will continue with CPS’ Skyline initiative. -
Ensure adequate and sustainable Arts Education funding is equitably distributed across the district and additional funds are available to support arts innovation and school action plans.
Funding from the Creative Schools Fund and the district has become an important part of how schools plan and budget for arts education alongside their other priorities each year. CPS has made the commitment and taken ownership of the Arts Essentials grant fund established and previously run through Ingenuity’s Creative Schools Fund, which fulfills recommendation B.
Recommendation Goal Status Impact A Require each school to maintain a budget for the arts set at a minimum of percent of each school’s overall budget or a per pupil/per art form formula. Ongoing The Board of Education’s approval of the Plan immediately set this recommendation into action. That said, each year, a school’s capacity to see the recommendations through is dependent on annual budgets, course scheduling, and competing priorities. B Establish a district fund to provide all schools with adequate materials and resources. Fully Implemented Established and named Arts Essentials in the 2017-2018 School Year State legislation passes resolving CPS’s fiscal crisis and CPS quickly commits $645K – using Chief Education Office. This establishes a district fund called for in the CPS Arts Education Plan 2012 to provide all schools with adequate materials and resources, known as “Arts Essentials” dollars. C Create an external Arts Expansion & Alignment Fund to support schools directly for external partnerships that are in addition to certified arts staff. Fully Implemented Renamed the Creative Schools Fund, launched in 2013
Established by Ingenuity with dedicated funding from private and philanthropic donors. Ingenuity has operated as the unofficial fundraising arm for the city, bringing private dollars into CPS to increase arts access for students – this was and is especially important as CPS and the City frequently navigate the ebb and flow of budget challenges.
Initially, Ingenuity and the Board of Ed agree private dollars will serve as primary funding until the City are better situated fiscally.
In school year 18-19, City Hall invests $1M (an additional $500K from CPS and $500K from Mayor's Office,
designed to be rolling) for arts residencies and student learning experiences. Additionally,
CPS maintains its investment of $638K in Arts Essentials dollars. Private dollars allocated to
schools total $633,792. This establishes the balance between public and private dollars
supporting school grants, fulfilling the Fund's original design.D Develop and maintain external funding streams via previously untapped sources such as corporate giving, and public donation. Fully Implemented Be Creative Campaign launched in 2014 to seed the Creative Schools Fund Ingenuity begins raising $16M in private funding—with backing from City Hall, the Chicago Board of Education and civic leaders. Newer private investment such as Lollapalooza have been added over the years.