Model Schools: A Game-Changing Reform Initiative

Over academic years 2013–15, KID smART will implement an intensive and comprehensive project to bring three of its participating schools—ARISE Academy, Martin Behrman Elementary and Langston Hughes Academy—to model arts integration school status.

The Model Schools Initiative will implement arts integrated instruction across the entire school curriculum—in every class at four grade levels—over the arc of the project. Primary strategies include comprehensive strategic planning with each school, facilitated by KID smART and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; broader scope and greater impact of classroom residencies through increased teaching artist time and embedded coaching of classroom teachers; and increased numbers of teachers participating in formal arts integration professional development in the AXIS program.

The initiative has a rigorous evaluation component. Project results will be disseminated to a broad field of stakeholders in the arts and education sectors. The evaluation reports will contribute to the growing body of data documenting the transformative power of the arts in children's learning and in the formation of traits and habits of mind that lead to success in life and work.

The project design is a capacity-building model focusing on strengthening the schools' abilities to sustain arts integration best practices once the initiative is completed. Core funding for the initiative is provided by Baptist Community Ministries.

For more information about the Model Schools Initiative, contact KID smART Executive Director Echo Olander.

Objectives of the Model Schools Initiative

•    To increase student levels of academic achievement, deepen their learning, build their critical thinking/ problem-solving skills, foster creativity and imagination, and enhance their social/emotional growth.

•    To increase teacher efficiency through their use of arts-integrated instructional practice.

•    To strengthen positive school cultures through increasing engagement in joyful learning at all levels of the school.