Regardless of your role in the arts education ecosystem, sustainability is the proverbial grand prize.
What do we want?
Imagine the day… The arts are universally endorsed in public education policy and practice and included without question in school budgets. The arts would gain the same footing (and resources) as reading or math. Students would have access to the arts at all grade levels; school counselors would recommend multi-year study in the arts; scheduling issues would magically disappear; arts educators would be valued and celebrated. A quality education in the arts would be accessible to all.
Why do we want it?
Apart from our certainty that kids thrive with the arts, supported by an ever-growing body of research, sustainability comes with other benefits: No roller coaster feast or famine cycles for arts education. No annual budget battles pitting the arts against everything else. No need to justify the value of the arts. No us vs. them.
But wait…
Nonprofits like to joke that their ultimate measure of success is that they put themselves out of business. Does sustainability mean we would dispense with the myriad community artists and nonprofits supporting arts education, advocacy campaigns that are now standard fare, awareness-raising proclamations and celebrations, or external funding for the arts? Is that what we want?
Sustainability is not absolute.
When I entered the field as a teaching artist in the 1980s, the arts and education fields had not coalesced as “arts education.” Over the past four decades, we’ve actually learned a thing or two, moving from silos of isolated activity to complex networks of mutual support.
We’ve also learned that the world—and our view of sustainability—takes on a different hue depending on where we sit.
- Students want more choices.
- Parents want success for their children.
- Arts education practitioners want programs to live beyond their tenure.
- Advocates wish for the arts to be sustained as a core feature in education.
- School administrators want a solution for budget constraints and impacted schedules.
- Funders look for impact that is sustainable beyond the grant.
- Policymakers want solutions beyond immediate political and budgetary realities.
Sustainability may not be absolute, but rather a continuum of progress, each with different levers to indicate progress. As the arts ed field is evolving, we recognize the value of creating community. To me, sustainability is found in this ability to rely on each other’s strengths and support one another in challenging times.
You can find evidence of this cross-cutting work everywhere, from rural to urban sites, city, state and national. Dive deep into every endeavor and you’ll uncover hours of thoughtful conversation and earnest solutions-thinking among stakeholders.
A few noteworthy examples of allied activity and support, all with an eye toward sustainability:
- Ingenuity, Inc. in Chicago is tracking increases in arts education access, equity, and quality in Chicago Public Schools with their artlook® Map.
- MINDPOP in Austin, Texas supports a creative learning environment for general classroom teachers, integrates meaningful community arts partnerships with schools, and engages all levels of the system, including teachers, campus leaders, district administrators, artists and communities.
- Arizona Department of Education’s Arts Education Office is staffed by an interdisciplinary team of content specialists, who work closely with communities by collaborating with educators, schools, community members, and policymakers to ensure every child receives a well-rounded education.
- The Teaching Artist Certificate Program, offered by Teachers College at Columbia University and Young Audiences, acknowledges the important role of teaching artists in the schools.
- Governor Murphy and Arts Ed NJ recently announced that New Jersey is the first state to provide universal access to arts education for nearly 1.1 million students.
- NAMM, along with the National Association for Music Education, and a host of partners, advocated to secure a new funding stream for music and the arts with the Student Support and Academic Enrichment Grant program (Title IV, Part A).
- Funders, such as the CMA Foundation, Save the Music Foundation, and Grammy Music Education Coalition, encourage cross-sector engagement and community partnerships.
- Collective Impact Grants from the National Endowment for the Arts embrace systemic, multi-dimensional, cross-sector approaches to increase student access to the arts.
- The National PTA has a position statement and state-supported programs, affirming the importance of the arts in education.
If we agree that the entirety of our field has a role in sustainability, then we have more work to do. To achieve fully the richness of the arts, we must embrace our collective strengths. I’m not suggesting that we’ll agree 100% on tactics or that we’re required to hitch our wagon to every passing educational trend. Rather, we must continue to place students at the center, set a high bar for ourselves and be committed to mutual support of the broader community.
Progress is always hard-won, often incremental and sometimes stunningly game changing. When you’re answering questions about sustainability on the next grant application, you can reply honestly, “We’re getting there.” Every effort moves us toward sustainability of progress and the gold cup.
Photo by Fauzan Saari on Unsplash
