Arts Impacting Achievement

AIA’s Foundation

Through teacher professional development and direct classroom support, arts integration improves literacy and student achievement PreK-12 across all subject areas. Playwriting, theatre arts, music, visual arts, dance and writing become the vehicle for academic exploration. The creation and implementation of standards based arts integrated units is at the core of our work, and together with a cadre of professional teaching artists, teacher/artist teams engage students in learning through and in the arts.

AIA developed its theory and practice on lessons learned in the ten-year development of the nationally recognized Lakeview Education and Arts Partnership (LEAP), a community-based partnership, which demonstrates how arts integration is a major component in whole school change. The elementary schools in LEAP served as demonstration sites for new schools adopting the same vision of teaching and learning.

Disseminating the Model

In October 2003, Beacon Street Gallery and NEIU’s Chicago Teachers’ Center (CTC) were awarded the Arts Impacting Achievement research grant in the amount of $800,120 from the United States Department of Education’s Office of Innovation and Improvement. AIA was one of 34 grants funded in the Arts and Education Model Development and Dissemination Grant Program for the three-year period from 2003-2006. In three schools in Chicago and three schools in Elgin, this experimental design initiative helped us to demonstrate and describe the processes of how arts integration impacts student achievement. The LEAP network teachers served as consultants to the project and its schools were demonstration sites.

LEAP at a Glance

In 1993, LEAP formed with the singular objective: to increase student achievement by integrating the arts across the daily school curriculum. Initially funded by the Chicago Arts Partnership in Education (CAPE), LEAP later received full implementation support from the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. The initial LEAP network included Lakeview High School, Audubon, Blaine and Ravenswood Elementary Schools, Beacon Street Gallery, the Lakeview Chamber of Commerce, Sulzer Regional Library and Northeastern Illinois University, which also served as the anchor organization and fiscal agent. LEAP involved over 20 artists teaming with over 70 teachers to create what were then called integrated curricular lessons (ICLs). Over 2,000 students received the benefit of this rigorous arts academic initiative. LEAP has been recognized nationally through Harvard’s Project Zero and components of the program have been replicated in the U.K.

Central to the partnership vision was the necessity to connect the community to the schools. This included an active parent component, an advisory council, biannual community meetings, end-of-the-year exhibits, on-going transition to high school activities, professional development workshops, in-services and summer institutes and an Urban/Suburban exchange between high school students.

Professional Development Partnerships

Arts for Learning/Chicago · Beacon Street Gallery · The Chicago Board of Education · The Elgin School District U-46 · Hamilton Wings · Illinois Alliance for Arts Education · Lookingglass Theatre Company · The Scottish Arts Council · Steppenwolf Theatre’s Arts Exchange · Students Creating Opera to Reinforce Education! (SCORE!) · Zephyr Dance ·

LEAP, which later became housed at CTC’s Arts at the Center of Teaching and Learning, has included funding by: The National Annenberg Foundation, The US Department of Education, The Chicago Arts Partnership in Education, The Polk Bros. Foundation, Prince Charitable Trust, The Field Foundation and Kraft Arts Discovery II.

Arts at the Center and LEAP’s work are featured in the following:

Books and Research Studies

Burnaford, G., et al. Renaissance in the Classroom: Arts Integration and Meaningful Learning.

Mahwah, N.J.: L. Erlbaum Associates, 2001.

Mabry, Linda. Portfolios Plus: A Critical Guide to Alternative Assessment. Thousand Oaks, CA:

Corwin Press, 1999.

Morrison Institute for Public Policy. Schools, Communities and the Arts. A Research Compendium.

Temple, AZ: School of Public Affairs, Arizona State University, 1995.

Seidel, Steve, et al. Arts Survive: A Study of Sustainability in Arts Education Partnerships. Cambridge,

MA: Project Zero, Harvard University Graduate School of Education, 2001.

Snow, David. LEAP Year: A Program Evaluation of the Lakeview Education and Arts Partnership.

Chicago, IL: Center for Instructional Evaluation, University of Illinois, 1998.

Stokes, Kelly. “LEAPing toward Change: A Portrait of Teacher-Artist Collaborative Instructional

Practice in the Elementary Classroom.” Diss. Temple University, 2001.

Wilhelm, Jeffrey. Action Strategies for Deepening Comprehension. Scholastic, November 2002.

Media

“Arts at the Center of Teaching and Learning.” DVD Film Document, Chicago, IL: Northeastern

Illinois University, 2004.

“Creative Classrooms.” Artbeat Chicago, WTTW-Channel 11, November 20, 1998.

A Roadmap to Succes, the Lakeview Education and Arts Partnership (LEAP), CD-ROM. Chicago, IL:

Northeastern Illinois University, 1998.

LEAP Yearbook, Chicago Teachers’ Center, Northeastern Illinois University. A compilation of

Integrated Curricular Lesson (ICL) write-ups that reflect over 200 integrated curricular lessons

and mini-units, 1998.