Stephanie A. Moore, M.S.’s Post

Creativity is one of the top 5 skills that employers across all sectors are looking for - at that very basic level the policy to focus classrooms away from creative subjects simply does not compute!!!

🎭 School provides a vital experience for all children to access and experience the arts. 📊 But official stats collected between 2013-14 and 2019-20 showed that a high percentage of 11-15 year olds in England had only engaged with arts activities at school, and not outside of school, in the prior 12 months. ↘️ The State of the Arts report showed that numbers of arts teachers, arts teaching hours and arts entries at GCSE and A-Level are all in decline. This puts the entirety of arts access for many school-aged children and young people critically at risk. 🚨It's time to address the state of arts education. 👀 Read the full State of the Arts report here: https://lnkd.in/eYYUGcuy University of Warwick.

I actively design instructional materials for American history teachers and James Grossman and the American Historical Association's thorough refute of the recent "Executive Order Ending Radical Indoctrination in K–12 Schooling" really resonates. The TRUTH is, “Secondary US history teachers are professionals who are concerned mostly with helping their students learn central elements of our nation’s history. Teachers want students to read and understand founding documents to prepare them for informed civic engagement. They also want students to grapple with the complex history and legacies of racism and slavery. These goals are entirely compatible. We did not find indoctrination, politicization, or deliberate classroom malpractice.” #AmericanHistory #teaching #education

"As schools grapple with chronic absenteeism, the arts are an important way to reengage students. A 2021 EdVestors study of BPS students demonstrated that increased access to arts education improves student and parent engagement, reduces absenteeism, and strengthens school climate." - Marinell Rousmaniere, EdVestors President and CEO. Access the The Arts Advantage: Impacts of Arts Education on Boston Students, a longitudinal study based on more than 600,000 K-12 student-level observations here: https://lnkd.in/g4iQpKS

Excited to see these six powerful ways to embrace Juneteenth education! Education is key to understanding our history and fostering unity. Check out these insightful tips from Assistant Principal Tonette Honore: https://hubs.la/Q02Chd2F0

Check out this very timely webinar series by the Learning Policy Institute. Prominent education and civil rights experts will explore the historical, current, and future landscape of American education through the lens of Brown. This conversation is especially timely as fundamental rights and equity issues are being hotly contended once again.

Say it loud! 📣The arts are essential and a human right! To limit students access to arts education is to deny critical opportunities for social emotional development as well as other critical aptitudes: Confidence, creative problem-solving, cultural awareness, communication, conflict resolution, collaborative empathy and self-awareness. Decreasing support for arts education limits the ability for low-income communities to envision the many possible pathways that exist in both arts and non-arts professions. The proposed cuts disproportionately impact students in those communities.

It’s time to address? …let’s be really honest here. It’s actually been time for a number of years now. Has there been enough action to make a significant change? Sadly not. In FE, production art courses in the capital are closing at an alarming rate. The most recent being Lewisham College in September which has been providing a large proportion of unrepresented diverse demographic into the industry for over 2 decades These courses are direct feeders into HE and the industry and are totally recruited from secondary art students. 

I am excited to share and discuss this with my representatives and fellow advocates in a couple of weeks at the Texans for the Arts Advocacy Day at the Capitol. The Rice University Kinder Institute for Urban Research published a report last year which found there is substantial variation in the number of art courses offered by the socioeconomic and racial/ethnic composition of HISD high schools. https://lnkd.in/gQx6iUcM A 2019 Rice University study examined the impacts of arts educational experiences on Houston students and found considerable impacts on their social and emotional outcomes, which we know is evaluated as part of the TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills) requirements.  https://lnkd.in/gUS6Jkhc This study is tangible proof arts education is a lever for improving outcomes, and is more important now post-pandemic than ever before. Arts education prepares the 21st century workforce by developing core competency and interpersonal skills: creativity, innovation, critical thinking, problem solving, communication, and collaboration. Across Texas, nearly 845,000 people are employed in creative careers, which represents 1 in 15 jobs. The Texas Arts and Culture Industry has grown more than 30% over the past decade, generating $6 billion for the Texas economy and nearly $380 million in state sales tax revenue. https://lnkd.in/gUG-BhN2

Check out our newest report done with UCLA Center for the Transformation of Schools - Love is the Foundation for Life: Schott Report on Black Males in Public Education