Illinois Creates made its debut in 2005, but the ideas and planning behind the initiative date back to 2001, when the Chicago Community Trust’s Education Initiative formed the Arts Education Task Force. This task force conducted a study on the availability of arts education in Chicago Public Schools (CPS), revealing broad disparities in the number of arts education offerings found among school districts, as well as among schools within the same school districts.

In December 2003, IAAF partnered with The Trust’s Arts Education Task Force to develop a strategy to advocate for stronger state and local policies to ensure arts education is a core learning area for Illinois students. With support from the Illinois Arts Council, The Field Foundation of Illinois, The Joyce Foundation, and the Polk Bros. Foundation, this past spring IAAF initiated the first-ever statewide research analysis on the status of arts education in Illinois public schools.

Our survey was sent in April to all Illinois superintendents and principals. Its findings have provided us with current data, trends and insights into the strengths and challenges of arts education programs in public schools statewide, and helped us determine what role principals and superintendents believe arts education plays in the academic environment.

During FY05, the Illinois Creates initiative has made great progress. Some of our highlights include:

□   forming a statewide Arts Education Committee comprised of arts education experts, education leaders and members of IAAF’s Board of Directors;
□   conducting research on ten states that have successfully initiated, advanced and implemented arts education policies;
□   employing capwiz, an e-advocacy system, to communicate with a wide range of arts supporters about the initiative, which resulted in more than 2,500 e-mails to legislators this past spring in support of arts education;
□   distributing surveys to legislative candidates to assess their commitment to funding the arts and supporting stronger measures to ensure that arts education is in the standard curriculum;
□   distributing surveys to legislative candidates to assess their commitment to funding the arts and supporting stronger measures to ensure that arts education is in the standard curriculum;
□   coordinating a series of advocacy events in 21 districts throughout the state, at which IAAF had the opportunity to introduce and talk about the initiative;
□   organizing a national panel of arts education experts and advocates for a two-hour lunchtime plenary session entitled Forging a Vision for Arts Education in Illinois at IAAF’s 2005 One State: Together in the Arts conference in May;
□   reaching out to several influential legislators and leaders to inform them about our arts education agenda and to cultivate their support.


 

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