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Through the MetLife Foundation Partners in Arts Education Program, the Guild distributes best-practices guides, makes grants and produces training institutes to support high-quality, sustainable arts education partnerships with public schools.
Learn about:
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Profiles in Excellence: case studies of exemplary arts education partnershipsA supplement to Partners in Excellence This monograph describes three exemplary public school/community school partnerships: those led by Henry Street Settlement/Abrons Art Center in New York (theater), the Samuel S. Fleisher Art Memorial in Philadelphia (visual arts), and MacPhail Center for Music in Minneapolis (music). Sample program materials are included. |
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partners in excellence: a guide to community school of the arts/ public school partnerships from inspiration to implementationPublished in 2005, this handbook describes exemplary practices in planning and budgeting, fundraising and advocacy, content creation, professional development, and evaluation and assessment. Worksheets and an annotated bibliography are provided. |
Grants enhance arts learning in K–12 Public Schools by supporting partnerships which:
Fourteen Guild members were awarded grants totaling $215,000 to support sequential-based arts learning partnerships with their local public schools.
City Lore (Literary, New York, NY)
Luna Kids Dance (Dance, Berkley, CA)
MacPhail Center for Music (Music, Minneapolis, MN)
Samuel S. Fleisher Art Memorial (Visual Arts, Philadelphia, PA)
Learn more about earlier partnerships
Community Schools of the Arts have the potential to play a more comprehensive and influential role in educating our children, one that extends beyond high quality arts education taught by professional artists. Long-term partnerships with public schools enable community schools to enrich the general and arts curriculum through many avenues, including team teaching, artist-in-the-school residencies and communal performances and exhibits by students, faculty and artists. What many CSA’s view as a partnership, however, is often a one-sided approach whereby public schools purchase programs that are developed by the arts school. True partnerships, which involve deepening mutual regard, shared responsibility and accountability, and collaborative curriculum development, have been shown to have a powerful and lasting impact on students, faculty and the greater community
The goal of the Partners Training Institute is to provide key leaders and decision-makers at community schools with tools, training and know-how to develop successful arts education partnerships. They will be able to enter into partnership planning with a knowledge of best practices in the field, equipped to overcome whatever challenges may arise. Participants will emerge as more capable collaborators in the development of equally balanced, sustainable school partnerships.
Key areas of focus include the following:
Participants receive support materials prior to attending geared to help them determine their degree of readiness for a partnership by identifying their organizational assets and weaknesses, potential for local support, and other key issues.
The next Institute will be incorporated into the 2010 Conference for Community Arts Education as a track of workshops. Join our 73nd annual conference in San Francisco, CA, January 3 - 6, 2010.
Over the past 20 years the National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts has been engaged in an effort to understand how its constituents can contribute to the ongoing improvement of teaching and learning in the arts. The project has evolved out of a continuum of inquiry by the National Guild about effective arts education collaborations, beginning with the formation of a special task force in 1990. This was followed by the Repro pilot project from 1992-1994, and then the Linkages with Public Schools symposium in 1996, which was supported by the Annenberg Foundation. In 2000, with the generous support of The Josephine Bay Paul and C. Michael Paul Foundation, the Guild launched the Partners in Excellence (PIE) initiative. The initiative has enabled us to closely study and document best practices for partnerships between community and public schools.
In 2005, in partnership with the MetLife Foundation, the National Guild initiated the MetLife Foundation Partners in Arts Education Program. The Program distributes a best-practices guide, provides grants and produces training institutes.
• Convening of 15 partnerships that demonstrated high standards of excellence at a national summit to study promising practices and success factors. Four areas of investigation were delineated: Ecology of the Partnership, Quality of Teaching and Learning, Professional Development, and Program Evaluation and Assessment of Student Learning.
(2000-2001)
• Publication of conference proceedings and the creation of a training course curriculum. (2001-2002)
• Presentation of Training Institutes in 2002, 2005, 2006, and 2007.
• Distribution of $599,400 in grants for partnership projects providing direct sequential arts education to 18,871 students in 74 public schools since 2005.
• Distribution of Partners in Excellence books to more than 1,000 arts practitioners, funders and arts agency personnel.
• Distribution of Profiles in Excellence books in both hard and electronic copy to more than 1,500 arts practitioners, funders and arts agency personnel.
Learn more about other GUILD programs
