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The Council's Arts Education Program is an expression of its strong, ongoing commitment to the goal of quality arts education for all New Jerseyans and of its unshakeable belief that arts education is fundamental to a sound and complete education for all students. To achieve this goal the Council works with a broad array of partners and collaborators including the NJ Department of Education and seeks in all that it undertakes to help schools meet the NJ Core Curriculum Content Standards in the Visual and Performing Arts as well to bolster curriculum in the literary arts. The Council seeks to achieve these goals through three principal means:
- A battery of Arts Education Cosponsored Programs carried out in partnership with numerous private nonprofit organizations that place teaching artists in schools and after school settings, support teacher training, artist training, education reform, arts education advocacy and the development of model schools;
- Grants that include General Operating Support and Special General Program Support in the category of Arts Basic to Education and Arts Education Special Initiative Grants to discipline-specific organizations to encourage their greater involvement with and impact on New Jersey schools;
- Funding policies and overall grant support that encourage, reward and help underwrite the vast array of arts education programs provided by arts organizations and community groups.
Arts Basic to Education Grants
The Arts Basic to Education (ABE) category supports the operations of nonprofit organizations (not schools) that have a focus on making the arts a basic part of a sound, quality education by providing school-time and school-based arts programs for students in pre-kindergarten to grade 12 that are directly connected to the curriculum and/or to professional development for teachers. Those programs provide direct learning about art, art forms, and the processes of creating and expressing art (not the learning of other subjects through arts) by teaching artists.
While such activities as student assembly programs, one-time or short-term workshops are important, valuable and much-needed supplements to arts education, the ABE category supports and encourages longer-term in-school programs that lead to further development of core curriculum in the arts and help meet school-defined goals. Therefore ABE stresses a direct and usually longer-term relationship between the nonprofit provider of the arts learning experience and the educational institution. An ABE organization's program should be grade and learning level appropriate and taught in a sequential manner. The teaching artists involved should be reviewed for their artistic and education abilities and prepared to collaborate with teachers.
Arts Education Special Initiative Grants (AESI)
Recipients of GOS or GPS are eligible to apply for this to support new or expanded programs that make substantial contributions to quality arts education in schools. This grant category intends to aid arts organizations in developing their full potential as community resources to educational systems throughout New Jersey and create a stronger infrastructure for arts education statewide.
Arts Education Cosponsored Programs
Through the Council's many cosponsored projects in arts education, several important objectives are achieved: the annual placement of scores of professional artists in classrooms everywhere, the professional training of artists and educators to work effectively together, support for arts education advocacy and literacy in the arts, statewide focus on key issues, the creation of model, arts-infused schools and more.
Artists in Education (AIE): AIE is the cornerstone of the overall NJSCA Arts Education Program and is cosponsored with the AIE Consortium consisting of two arts education organizations: Arts Horizons and Young Audiences New Jersey. Through this Artists-in-Education Residency grant program practicing professional artists are placed in long-term residencies (20-100 days) in schools across the state. Residencies are offered in all disciplines and at all grade levels. All schools can apply for one-year residencies. Those schools with experience working with artists are eligible to apply for 2-year sequential residencies, and those with little or no experience can apply for 2-year Planning & Implementation (P & I) grants. Artists eligible to conduct these residencies will have been approved through a peer panel process conducted by the Council.
Residency Artists Certification: AIE residency artists are selected through a rigorous peer panel review process administered by the NJSCA. Applicants are evaluated for both the quality of their artwork and their ability to create lively, substantial and sequential arts programs in collaboration with teachers in educational settings. Professional practicing artists who wish to learn more about becoming eligible to conduct AIE residencies should click here.
Artist Teacher Institute (ATI): ATI is cosponsored with Arts Horizons, and is a 30 year old program in which educators participate in hands-on, intensive creative experiences with master teaching artists in order to grow artistically and as educators. The Institute is a non-residential, 10-day experience offered annually in both North and South Jersey. Teachers, school administrators, teaching artists and student teachers experience first-hand the process of learning through the arts. Daily discipline-based workshops are enhanced by sessions on important educational issues and critical topics in arts education. In addition, fall and spring follow up sessions are held at both sites.
New Jersey Writers Project (NJWP): The Council's longest standing partnership, the NJWP is cosponsored with Playwrights Theatre of NJ. It places poets, prose writers and playwrights in more than 150 schools and other learning environments in all 21 counties each year. In basic residencies, a writer spends 1 day planning and conducting a teacher-training workshop and 4 days teaching 4 classes in the craft of their genre. The NJWP also offers 8 and 12 day writing residencies. Many schools are expanding beyond this basic format by adding public readings by students, workshops for parents and other site-specific activities. Special focused residencies are offered for Spanish speaking students, the critical elementary grades, students with special needs, and under-served communities.
Greater Camden Area Artists in Education Program: This program, cosponsored with the Perkins Center for the Arts provides in-school short, medium and long term artist residencies in Camden, Burlington and Gloucester Counties with special emphasis on Camden City.
Arts Creates Excellent Schools (ACES): Arts Creates Excellent Schools (ACES) supports the development of arts-centered schools and provides technical assistance, leadership and dissemination of information on models of school reform through the arts. ACES is conducted in partnership with the AIE Consortium (Arts Horizons and Young Audiences NJ) and the New Jersey Department of Education. The ACES models developed by the three ACES pilot sites (Woodrow Wilson School, Union City School District; Logan Township Elementary School, Logan Township School District; and Glen Rock School District) will be available on the ACES homepage to be launched on the Department of Education web site.
New Jersey Arts Education Collective (NJAEC): The Collective is a partnership of 11 nonprofit organizations whose mission is to provide the highest quality professional development for members of the arts and education community. The vision of the NJAEC is to provide a network of support that strengthens the field of arts education by developing skills and sharing resources through meetings, trainings and seminars. Professional development topics focus on current issues such as education reform movements, reaching all students, best practices for teaching artists, and building strong partnerships with schools and communities. At the heart of the NJAEC is the belief that Teaching Artists offer a unique contribution to New Jersey's students, teachers and communities by providing essential learning experiences in and through the arts.
New Jersey Arts Education Census Project: Cosponsored with Music for All, Inc and in partnership with the NJ Department of Education, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation and Playwrights Theatre of NJ, the New Jersey Arts Education Census Project is building on a previous body of work carried out by the NJSCA ten years ago to survey and map the status of arts education in K-12 public schools in New Jersey. The Census Project has surveyed every public school in the state in 2006. These findings, combined with the previous study, create a 360 degree view of arts education in New Jersey. The results and findings from the Census Project are accessible through the web-based arts education information and resource center at www.artsednj.org.
Arts Education Summits: The NJSCA convenes Arts Education Summits each year to bring together the field to discuss issues of importance, share knowledge and best practices, and forge consensus on ways to move forward in making quality arts education available throughout a lifetime of learning for all New Jersey residents.
Poetry Out Loud: The National Endowment for the Arts and The Poetry Foundation have partnered with State Arts Agencies to support Poetry Out Loud, which encourages the nation's youth to learn about great poetry through memorization and performance. This program helps students master public speaking skills, build self-confidence and learn about their literary heritage. New Jersey Poetry Out Loud (NJPOL) was launched by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, in partnership with Playwrights Theatre of NJ/New Jersey Writers Project, in 2006. NJPOL is a statewide program, conducted with a growing partnership that includes the New Jersey Theater Alliance, Discover Jersey Arts and New Jersey Network. All NJ public and private high schools are eligible to participate. Students compete in classroom and school-wide competitions. The NJ state champion will advance to the National Finals in Washington D.C. for more information please visit NJ POL.
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