Welcome to Austin, Kennedy Center Committee!

Last night, I had the pleasure of having dinner at the President's Office at The University of Texas with members of the Kennedy Center's National Committee for the Performing Arts. The Committee is meeting in Austin, and conducting site visits as part of the Any Given Child funding initiative. Thanks to UT-Austin President Bill Powers for hosting the dinner and for allowing us to enjoy the spectacular views from the terrace.

Then, this morning, Highland Park and Brentwood Elementary schools hosted a tour to give our visitors a close-up look at the arts in education in AISD schools. At Highland Park, the hallways were lined with displays of how teachers are incorporating their new creative teaching strategies into instruction.

Since it's close to Halloween, the Highland Park Elementary library featured some amazing pumpkin creations. Kudos to Highland Park librarian Cheryl Mullins for bringing together such an impressive display.

On our next stop, Brentwood Elementary teachers performed a short play to illustrate how dramatic arts support classroom activities.

These two school visits highlighted arts integration strategies in the classroom and how teacher professional development in the arts supports learning.

Following the tour, a panel of principals, district leaders, community arts partners, and philanthropic and business leaders talked about the impact of creative learning in Austin generally, and of the Any Given Child initiative in particular.These are some of the highlights of my remarks to the committee:

As superintendent, I have been committed to expanding opportunities in the arts for all students, even in the face of significant budget cuts last year. The fine arts are front and center of our facilities planning this year.

In AISD, we believe the arts are important for students. The research is clear: students with access to rigorous, creative learning opportunities experience higher levels of motivation; attendance at school; increased cognitive functioning; and increased pro-social behaviors like empathy and community involvement; and higher levels of academic achievement and college attainment long-term. In fact, students who attend arts-rich schools are more than twice as likely to attend college than similar students who attend arts-poor schools.

Developing creative learning opportunities for our community is key to Austin’s future economic and cultural vitality. Austin is the Live Music Capital of the World, a growing center for digital media and gaming, and home to world-class arts organizations across all disciplines. Arts education for our youngest citizens is vitally important to maintaining our strong creative economy into the future.

We’ve had some great successes in arts in education so far, but we need to do more. In the past year, we have piloted the Creative Classroom initiative in 6 campuses in the McCallum vertical team, providing professional development for arts integration in the classroom. Schools report increased attendance and retention rates, citing the arts as a key factor. Although we began in only six schools in the McCallum vertical team, results have been so exciting the principals lobbied to become part of the project. A local donor has been so impressed by the initial Any Given Child work that they established the Austin Creative Classroom Fund and dedicated $1,000,000 in direct grants for schools.

In the Any Given Child audit that was conducted over the past year, we found that students have strong foundations in the sequential fine arts, with some gaps in student access to a diversity of art forms, cultural heritage, and depths of experience, especially at the middle school level. The audit also found an opportunity to impact student learning through arts-based instruction across the curriculum. Almost all the 108 Principals surveyed (91.3%) suggested the arts have a great deal of value in child development and most recognize the value of the arts for engaging is engaged students (97.1%) and encouraging parental involvement (94.1%). These statistics held true in similar proportions for the 1,553 general classroom teachers we surveyed. 92.3% of general classroom teachers expressed an interest in receiving Professional Development in one or more art form.

The Any Given Child plan recommends that

· We maintain and increase the strength of the Sequential Fine Arts , where students have access to a diversity of art forms (disciplines, e. g. dance, theatre, visual arts, music, and media); access to diverse cultural heritages; and diversity of kinds of experiences (e. g. students going as an audience; having the opportunity to create art).

· Teachers become skilled in arts-based strategies that allow kids to build a deeper understanding. Teachers can use arts experiences in strategic ways to help students link prior knowledge with new information to deepen insights and understanding (durability of learning; persistence).

· Kids and families have stronger connections to neighborhood and community arts resources, community arts partners and cultural centers and libraries.

The Any Given Child Initiative will:

· Ensure that all students have access to quality, diverse creative learning opportunities to increase student engagement;

· Build classroom teachers’ skills in using high yield arts-based strategies across the curriculum to increase student achievement;

· Align community and neighborhood resources and partnerships to effectively increase the schools capacity to meet the particular needs of their community; and

· Support existing fine arts programs and staff.

On behalf of the Austin Independent School District and our Any Given Child partners, I want to thank the Kennedy Center for their support of our community and our kids. Y’all come back now, y’hear?

P.S. There were so many beautiful pumpkins on display...I wanted to share my photos with you!