In the grand tradition of Isabella Stewart Gardner and Henry Clay Frick, Alice L. Walton has used her immense wealth to create a world-class museum for the enjoyment of a broad public audience. Unlike Gardner and Frick, however, Walton, who opened a museum in 2011, did not select a location in a bustling metropolis to build what will become her…

The 2015 passing of Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) to replace No Child Left Behind was celebrated within the arts community (Arts Education Partnership, 2017; National Art Education Association, 2017; Walker, 2016) for embracing a "well-rounded education" that explicitly includes the arts in its definition (ESSA, 2015, p. 298). In…

This article discusses how art can contribute to the creation of a translanguaging space and how a community program can be a significant site for this collective and creative endeavor. Drawing on translanguaging theories, I founded the "Entretejer/Interweave Community School" program in collaboration with the Immigrant Resource Center,…

Every student deserves arts instruction for its own sake, as an essential ingredient to a well-rounded education. Yet arts education adds value for a whole host of other educational purposes: among them, enhanced writing and reading, ability to retain information, problem solving, and critical thinking. Interest in models of whole-school reform…

Field trips to see theater performances are a long-standing educational practice; however, there is little systematic evidence demonstrating educational benefits. This article describes the results of five random assignment experiments spanning 2 years where school groups were assigned by lottery to attend a live theater performance or, for some…

This study examines teacher response to year one implementation of the A+ Schools Program arts integration model. Twenty-two randomly selected teachers from three school sites were observed over a 12-month period to gather baseline and year one data. Performance results indicated no significant changes in teacher behaviors based on Friedman's test…

The purpose of this study was to compare differences in teachers' instructional behaviors during Year 2 implementation of the A+ Model of arts integration. Forty-six (i.e., 23 control, 23 experimental) randomly selected teachers from six school sites (i.e., 3 control, 3 experimental) were observed over a two year period. In addition, six teachers…

As school funding in the U.S. continues to drop or stagnate, arts education programs have suffered, particularly in poor districts. One approach to overcoming this problem has been for non-profit organizations to develop innovative curricula with technology components that allow students to learn about art without having to leave the classroom. In…

Classroom and arts educators frequently collaborate in the pursuit of common educational goals. Examples of sophisticated interdisciplinary teaching can be found in nearly every classroom, as when teachers use music to provide context for social movements, dancers to demonstrate various types of movement, or paintings to illustrate proportion.…

This article examines whether exposure to the arts has an effect on the ability of students to engage in critical thinking. We conduct a randomized controlled trial involving 3,811 students who were assigned by lottery to participate in a School Visit Program at the newly opened Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Students who participated in…

Research shows that participation in school-based arts education has declined over the past decade. A problem for the arts' role in education has been a lack of rigorous scholarship that demonstrates educational benefits. A component of this problem has been a lack of available data. In this study, we use original data collected through a…

The school field trip has a long history in American public education. For decades, students have piled into yellow buses to visit a variety of cultural institutions, including art, natural history, and science museums, as well as theaters, zoos, and historical sites. Schools gladly endured the expense and disruption of providing field trips…

Four researchers collaborated on this qualitative case study that examined 11 first-year novice art teachers' understanding and implementation of meaningful curriculum. Participants were selected through a criterion method sampling strategy; the subjects were employed in rural, urban, and suburban public school districts. In order to conduct a…

This article discusses Fundreds in Arkansas, an interactive cooperative in Arkansas to promote and support Mel Chin's nationwide interdisciplinary artwork, Operation Paydirt (The Fundred Dollar Bill Project). The artwork involves communities and educational institutions across the country, healthcare professionals, engineers, urban planners, and…

One might not immediately think of Conway, a city of 55,000, as an arts hub. Conway is growing and changing, and the university's artistic aspirations have played a role. In recent years the University of Central Arkansas, a campus of 13,000 students, has become home to two prestigious literary magazines: (1) "Oxford American"; and (2)…