Partnership to help education in arts

A new partnership the UW is constructing aims at nothing less than transforming arts education in Puget Sound area schools. The K-12 Arts Initiative, which will be part of the Office of Educational Partnerships, is designed to develop a comprehensive approach to K-12 arts education in the region by creating partnerships between the UW, professional arts organizations, the philanthropic community and the K-12 community.

Christine Goodheart

Christine Goodheart, program development director for New York City’s Lincoln Center Institute, has been hired to direct the new initiative. Goodheart will arrive in Seattle June 1 from her job at the institute, which is the educational arm of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

“One of the things that attracted me to the University of Washington was the ideals expressed by President McCormick and others regarding the public purposes of a research university in the 21st century — in particular, using the remarkable capacity of the university to address one of the central problems facing society, improving K-12 education,” Goodheart said.

She has served as a consultant to school districts, universities, arts centers, arts councils, museums and education agencies in the development of arts programs. She has been at the Lincoln Center Institute since 1987.

Goodheart states the goal of the initiative simply: “The arts can become a part of the lives of all our children.”

The arts initiative will be analogous in some ways to what the UW is doing with area schools in mathematics and science instruction. But the landscape is quite different. For one thing, there is no federal agency comparable to the National Science Foundation that will fund this kind of initiative. And there is a large array of community arts groups whose involvement in education varies from providing speakers at assemblies to intensive, year-long projects.

Although Goodheart arrives June 1, she’s been on the job since March, visiting the campus periodically and meeting with philanthropic and educational organizations on the East Coast. The reaction from the Seattle arts community has been enthusiastic.

“There’s so much the UW can bring to strengthening arts education in the region,” says Jill Rullkoetter, director of education and public programs for the Seattle Art Museum. “The UW’s strong research program can help us explain why the arts are important. Also, the UW can contribute a great deal by creating a model for how to teach teachers, so they leave college with a strong arts education that can be brought to the classroom.”

Frances McCue, executive director and founder of Richard Hugo House, says Goodheart can act as an ambassador between the UW and the community. “Arts organizations are generally unaware of the programs going on in each other’s venues. Chris Goodheart can act as a catalyst to promote sharing of this information, so that resources can be used more efficiently. Her experience at Lincoln Center is inspiring to all of us in the city concerned about children getting a full and rich arts education.”

Elisabeth Squires, president of PONCHO (Patrons of Northwest Civic, Cultural and Charitable Organizations), says, “PONCHO is excited that the University is focusing resources on arts education. PONCHO has long recognized that exposure to the arts is integral to educating the entire child. Sadly, arts funding is often the first to go when budgets are tightened. We look forward to working with Chris and the University to demonstrate the need for a sustained commitment to the arts in our schools.”

In New York, Goodheart led the Institute’s work within a $100 million arts initiative funded jointly by a private philanthropy, the city and the school system. She created the Higher Education Collaborative, in which the Institute partnered with schools of education to infuse arts into the teacher education curriculum.

The Seattle School District has high hopes for this new partnership. “The UW can play an important role as a facilitator,” says Marta Olson, divisional and performing arts program manager for the district. “We have challenges in implementing the new statewide performance standards with a limited number of arts specialists in elementary schools. We see the specialist as a facilitator in teacher learning and planning curriculum across the day and across disciplines. The UW will have an important role as a catalyst and as a leader in post-secondary training.”

Goodheart’s first task will be to catalog what is currently being done to assist arts education, whether by the UW or community organizations. Next, she will convene a planning group at the UW for those interested in being part of the initiative. This group will be augmented by representatives of community arts organizations and the schools. Together, these people will develop a three-year plan for arts education.

Looking at the models from the science and math initiatives, as well as her own experience, Goodheart knows that one of the first steps that must occur is professional development for the classroom teacher. “Teachers are going to need resources to create programs. That means not just materials, but intellectual resources as well. Ideally, we will work with our partners to create rich professional development opportunities in the arts, and help support the creation of a comprehensive arts education program in school and community settings.”

Goodheart would like to see a certain level of arts activity in every school, as part of the curriculum or in an after school program. “This should be an ongoing activity, not just assemblies or an occasional visiting artist. It should be something of substance in which the students are engaged. From this base, we can work to build a greater focus for the arts.”

One thing Goodheart is clear about is the role of the arts in education. “There is a correlation between student engagement in the arts and achievement in other areas of the curriculum, especially those that measure expressive capacity and language. But beyond their contribution in other disciplines, study of the arts, and expression in the arts, is a central feature of human beings.”

Or, as Louis Fox, vice provost for educational partnerships, puts it, “We don’t have to choose between art for art’s sake versus art’s role as being instrumental to instruction in other areas.”

Goodheart, who will have an affiliate appointment in the College of Education, hopes to build linkages between the arts in the preservice teacher education program and the in-service teacher education programs developed as part of this initiative. And that’s just the beginning of connections that can be built between the UW and the community. “The UW and Seattle have a vibrant arts scene. The UW has a natural history museum, an art gallery and many performance spaces. The Summer Arts Festival is one of the things that excited me most in coming to Seattle: It will highlight resources at the UW, provide a strong educational component and create linkages with downtown.”

Goodheart’s arrival in Seattle comes just a few months after Rudy Crew, former chancellor of the New York City schools, became head of the UW’s Institute for K-12 leadership. The two plan to collaborate here. “As we’ve learned in our technology initiative in the schools,” Fox says, “if we’re serious about making changes, school leadership is the key factor. My hunch is the same is true in the arts.”

UW faculty will play an important role in this initiative, and Michael Halleran, division dean for the arts and humanities in the College of Arts and Sciences, is excited by the possibilities. “One of the college’s missions is to interact with the larger community. Logically, that should mean increased outreach to the K-12 system. This initiative, and Chris’s arrival, will do for the arts and humanities what’s happened in math and science. One concern I have is where faculty will find the time for this necessary work. But recent changes in the faculty code will permit a faculty member to be judged on meritorious contributions that emphasize one of the UW’s three missions. So a faculty member could choose to devote substantial energies to K-12 and be evaluated on the effectiveness of that effort.

“The initiative also dovetails with the work of the Simpson Center for the Humanities, which wants to enlarge the public presence of the humanities. The University can help to provide intellectual content for K-12 teachers in a number of ways.”

Goodheart believes the University is ideally positioned to make this work. “Some places have tried to create a separate, central independent organization to coordinate arts initiatives. In most of those cases, higher education has not been a player. I see no reason to take that route. We want to have all members of the arts community represented in what we do.”

Seattle public schools at one time had a model program for urban school systems in America in arts education, especially music. This “golden age” lasted until the early 1970s, when the Boeing Bust and the failure of two consecutive school levies decimated arts programs. This was a loss from which many experts feel the school system has never recovered. The UW initiative matches what appears to be a groundswell of community activism. Pockets of excellence in arts education have remained, but the challenge is to infuse arts more routinely into the curriculum, and to demonstrate the benefit of arts education for all students. ¶

Bob Roseth, News & Information