Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation

By Bob Morrison
Chair, New Jersey Arts Education Partnership Governance Committee
CEO, Quadrant Arts Education Research

One of the biggest issues I run into across the state as we discuss the role of arts education as part of the basic education of our children is the ever persistent fact that most people have no idea the policy underpinnings making arts education a right for ALL of our students. Not just the gifted, or the talented, or the economically advantaged.

Arts education in New Jersey is a basic educational right for every child. Period!

So, you may ask yourself… how is this possible? Well, arts education in New Jersey has a very strong grounding in state administrative code and even in the state Constitution itself. That’s right: based on current law, arts education for our students is a fundamental right anchored in the New Jersey Constitution.

Here is how it works:

The New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Standards

So what are the Core Curriculum Content Standards and why do we have them?

The Core Curriculum Content Standards (CCCS) were first developed in 1996 as an attempt to define the “Thorough” in “Thorough and Efficient education” as required by our state’s Constitution. Standards, by their very nature, describe what all students should know and be able to do upon completion of a thirteen-year public education (K-12). Standards are not a curriculum. They define the results expected but leave the process for achieving these results up to local school districts. In the 1996 CCCS there were seven academic content areas included: Visual and Performing Arts, Comprehensive Health and Physical Education, Language Arts/Literacy, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies and World Languages.

In 2009, the New Jersey State Board of Education adopted the most recent version of the Core Curriculum Content Standards. Content standards specify expectations in nine academic content areas: the visual and performing arts, comprehensive health and physical education, language arts literacy, mathematics, science, social studies, world languages, technological literacy, and career education and consumer, family, and life skills. (NJ Administrative Code 6A 8-1.1)

Additionally, in order to successfully complete high school in New Jersey students must meet the states Graduation Requirements, including 5 credits (1 year) in Visual & Performing Arts for High School graduation effective with the 2004-2005 ninth grade class (graduating class of 2008). (NJ Administrative Code 6A 8-1.1)

Core Curriculum Content Standards for the Visual and Performing Arts

So what do the standards call for regarding the visual and performing arts?

In New Jersey, equitable access to arts instruction can only be achieved if the four arts disciplines (Dance, Music, Theater and Visual Arts) are offered throughout the K-12 spectrum as defined by the CCCS. At the K-5 level, it is the expectation that students are given broad-based education through instruction as well as opportunities for participation in each of the four art forms. In grades 6-8, they should gain greater depth of understanding in at least one of those disciplines. In grades 9-12, it is the expectation that students demonstrate competency in at least one arts discipline. These expectations translate into curricular requirements for schools.

Districts are expected to provide opportunities for learning in ALL four arts content areas using sequential instruction taught by highly qualified teachers. This means the arts programs must have the same level of academic rigor and educational validity as any other core subject such as language arts literacy or math.

The CCCS were first adopted by the New Jersey State Board of Education in 1996 revised in 2004 and most recently in 2009. The 2009 standards in the visual and performing arts must be in place in all schools by September of 2012.

Interestingly, many people, including school and district administrators, have no idea what the standards are or what is required. I had one superintendent tell me, “If I had known I was supposed to be providing this instruction, I can assure you our schools would be teaching it.” A superintendent not knowing the educational requirements for our children? That is a scary thought.

However, like they say in the commercial:

But wait… there’s more!

Arts Education and the New Jersey Constitution: A Thorough and Efficient Education

What does any of this have to do with the New Jersey Constitution?

New Jersey is a state with a 120-year-old constitutional guarantee that regardless of residency, its children will receive a “Thorough and Efficient” education.

To be clear, the Constitution states:

“The Legislature shall provide for the maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system of free public schools for the instruction of all children in the State between the ages of five and eighteen years.” —New Jersey Constitution, Article VIII, Section IV, paragraph 1

Which brings us to the next logical question: How do we define the terms “Thorough and Efficient” for our state?

This now brings us full circle – back to the Core Curricular Content Standards.

In May of 1997, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled in the case of Abbott v. Burke on the two main parts of the Comprehensive Education Improvement and Financing Act (CEIFA) signed into law in December of 1996 by Governor Whitman. CEIFA was comprised of two parts: the core curriculum content standards and a school funding formula. Justice Adam B. Handler, writing for the majority, upheld the CCCS, commenting in his decision that they “are facially adequate as a reasonable legislative definition of a constitutional thorough and efficient education.” (Source: Abbott v. Burke)

It is this ruling by the State Supreme Court that codifies the CCCS as the definition of a “Thorough and Efficient” education as guaranteed by the state constitution.

Just Because It’s a “Right” Doesn’t Mean it Happens!

In essence, the CCCS codification of arts education has made arts education the constitutional right for all students for the past 16 years.

Does this ensure all of our entitled students actually are receiving arts education?

Well that’s a subject for another post!

Image courtesy Visual Arts Center of NJ

New Jersey Arts Education Partnership is a regular contributor to the Dodge blog on arts education issues.

In the second of a two-part series from the Trenton Community Music School, Gerilyn Stolberg, who is a classroom teacher at Learning Depot preschool – a Music for the Very Young partner school in Trenton – describes the impact participation in the Music for the Very young program has had on her teaching and students.

By Gerilyn Stolberg
Learning Depot Preschool

As the school year was ending, I found myself reflecting on my teaching and how dramatically the Trenton Community Music School’s “Music for the Very Young”(MVY) program has changed how I teach.

Five years ago, music took on a new role in my preschool classroom. MVY introduced me to a whole new way to teach, not just music, but my entire curriculum. The MVY music specialist visits once a week, and after she leads a rousing 30-minute music class, she and I plan how to integrate the program’s songs and activities into my lesson plans and daily routines over the week ahead.

Music has become a way of life in my classroom. I use music to teach, for enjoyment, for transitions and for just getting the group’s attention. Children use their bodies to move, to learn rhythm and beat, (an important prelude to reading). They hear music from all around the world and learn new vocabulary through the diverse songs that we sing. They also have the opportunity to see musical notes in a book that belongs to them. The children explore the beautiful pictures for the songs and quickly begin to associate the picture with the song, another reading-readiness activity.

During the past year, one of my students, a four-year old boy, started the year with very little language and delayed social skills. A few weeks after we began our MVY music classes, I noticed this child was beginning to hum along and sing the songs and chants. One day, when I rang the clean up bell, he took the song cards and sat in my chair. As the children joined us on the carpet he showed the cards and began singing the song- using most of the words. After that each child had to have a turn sitting in my chair to lead a song. He was so proud of himself, and I was speechless! By the end of the year, this child was able to sit with the music book and sing or chant almost every song as he looked at the pictures in the book.

I have seen similar results with children who are English Language Learners who learn to sing the songs even though they might not be speaking in the classroom. The English Language Learners light up when they hear a song in their native language on the CD.

The final piece to this amazing puzzle is the family piece. Parent involvement is crucial to success in school, and this program helps bridge the gap between home and school. Each family receives the CDs to play at home. The children also bring the books home to share with their families. The children’s families come to class to participate in their favorite songs during our Family Music Parties. After our last party, I knew we were on the right track when one parent asked me “When are we going to do this again? It was fun!”

As I compare my early experiences as a teacher and my more recent experiences, and recognize how many areas of my daily teaching and curriculum are touched by music, I wonder how I ever taught before MVY•

In case you missed it:
Part 1- Bringing Joy to the Classroom Through Music

Images courtesy Trenton Community Music School

Today’s guest blogger is Ronnie Ragen, the Community Outreach Director of the Trenton Community Music School. Ronni coordinates Music for the Very Young, the early childhood music, movement and literacy program created by TCMS in partnership with the Trenton Public Schools.

A family music party at the Trenton Community Music School. It’s so nice when moms visit for music making. (photo: Michael Mancuso for the Trenton Times)

By Ronnie Ragen
Community Outreach Director
Trenton Community Music School

In 1999, as a result of the ground-breaking Abbott V. Burke state Supreme Court ruling, standards based, pre-K classes became available for all three and four-year olds in New Jersey’s poorest, urban school districts.  Anxious that high quality music education be part of the newly-forming classes in Trenton, the Trenton Community Music School created Music for the Very Young (MVY) in 2000.  From a tiny pilot project with four classes, we currently work with about forty classes each year, and have had the privilege of making music with over 2500 of our community’s families over the years.

What happens when 3 and 4-year olds engage in high quality music-making activities?  Let’s visit a preschool classroom where the children are squirming with anticipation for their weekly MVY class.

We join the circle sitting on the floor – 15 children, 2 preschool teachers and the MVY music specialist. “Hello everybody, so glad to see you…”  Each child sings his or her own name, owning that moment, taking turns.  They sing hello to the class pet, to the letters hanging from their ceiling.  If they’ve just taken a field trip to the zoo, perhaps they’ll identify themselves as an animal they saw, instead of their names. “Hello, I’m a zebra!” Good for giggles, and some admiring nods from their teacher, delighted with the opportunity to hear what they remember.

From the start, the MVY lesson connects to the classroom and the children’s world.

Ronnie Ragen jams with some MVY friends

For the next half hour, we experience a variety of multi-cultural songs through musical and movement activities: chants that rhyme and emphasize rhythmic patterns, songs, in duple and triple meter (as well as unusual mixed meters) that have the children and adults dancing and singing.  The children make up new verses to songs, then suggest ways to change the movement, sharing the leadership, and ownership of the class. They move within one song from V-E-R-Y- S-L-O-W to speedy fast and back again, or across the full dynamic range of whisper soft to very loud (but never screaming!) and back again.  Each of these experiences provides the children with not only the opportunity to practice fundamental elements of music, but also to learn impulse control, which is a very important goal of pre-K teachers!

Add instrument play with drums and castanets, and dancing with chiffon scarves, and the children are engaged in both large and small motor activities.  Sometimes it’s hard not to get the drum you had your heart set on, or the red scarf, but “There will be a next time” is also part of the lesson being learned.

The class winds down with a lullaby.  After getting the children all riled up, it’s only fair to bring them back to a quiet place.  But, before we sing the Good-Bye song, the children plead to perform their “Metamorphosis” chant. They scrunch up their scarves, to serve as cocoons, which are gradually unfurled to fly as butterflies.  The musical activity is helping to teach the science lesson, as the MVY teacher and the classroom teacher planned.

Kids and grown ups dancing together with dyna-bands

When developing MVY, the directors of the Trenton Community Music School investigated many early childhood music programs.  We chose to use the internationally-recognized Music Together® curriculum so that we would have high quality CDs and songbooks to leave in the classroom between weekly music classes.   Preschool teachers find the materials that they receive along with the CDs to be very useful classroom tools that they regularly fit into their literacy lessons.  Equally important, each child receives a copy of the CD and songbook for his or her very own to help create the link between home and school that is so crucial to the children’s success. We look forward to the point in the semester when parents begin to “complain” that their children won’t let them listen to any other music!  Each semester the children’s families are invited to Family Music Parties to share the music making fun with the children and teachers.

In the early days of MVY, a surprised classroom teacher noted, “This program isn’t just about music. It’s about how children learn.” Her words ring in my ears whenever I visit an MVY classroom and witness what it means to “educate the whole child.”

What can you see through music? This explorer wants to know. (photo: Michael Mancuso for the Trenton Times)

It’s always hard to leave after an MVY class.  The joy of the experience is palpable, and hangs in the air beyond the Good-Bye song.  As we face the staggering challenge of creating successful schools for inner-city children, I don’t think we can overstate the importance of joy in their classrooms.  Now, if only I could get Governor Christie to visit an MVY class!

Next week: a pre-K classroom teacher talks about how MVY transformed her teaching and her classroom.

Wendy Liscow,  Program Officer

The conversation with Dodge Foundation grantees about our new guideline themes Creativity and Sustainability has stimulated a wonderful investigative journey, but the real satisfaction has come from experiencing the two concepts coming together in action. As my colleagues and I travel the state visiting current and potential grantees, we have the honor of witnessing passionate leaders making these connections. Recently, I met some board members of Teaneck Creek Conservancy, a group of environmentalists, artists, educators and community advocates who shared a vision to save 46 acres of land, but in a manner that utilized eco-art to strengthen the community’s connection to and experience of  the park.  This marriage of sustainability and creativity was brought to life during a January walk in the woods.

The hike into Teaneck Creek Park was not long, but the path was still covered with splotches of ice and snow and the air was brutally cold, so it felt like we would never reach our destination. Just as I was longing for my scarf  left back in the car, we turned the bend and five bright patches of color emerged from the bleak winter landscape to grab my attention. There sat five beautifully painted massive cement storm water pipes: spherical murals  in nature, telling the story of nature.

If you had ventured down the same path this past spring you would have been distraught to discover five graffiti-covered storm pipes that had been littering this otherwise pristine slice of nature since the 1960’s.

Strolling later in the buggy heat of summer you would have found lead artist Eduardo Alexander Rabel, students from a variety of Teaneck schools, and community volunteers sketching, then painting, the visual stories of the vibrant local flora and fauna, and the impact of humankind on nature over time.

The artistry took my breath away, but the depth of the community art process was what impressed me most, and it is all captured in this wonderful video that I urge you to take the time to watch.

This is not Teaneck Creek Conservancy’s first marriage of art and nature. In April 2009 members of the Puffin Photo club led by professional photographer Rachel Banai put together an unique outdoor art exhibition called “Windows on the Park” that utilized old sash windows to frame photographic works that told the story of the seven year transformation of this brownfields-to-greenfields track of land.

Many people would agree that nurturing creativity, supporting public art projects and protecting our environment are worthy endeavors, but they approach each task separately. But when they combine these laudable goals, something larger than the sum of the parts occurs, as Dodge Program Director Michelle Knapik noted in her recent post about The Voices From the Land project.

We are interested in knowing if you have participated in or seen creativity and sustainability in action, experienced the flow of these two forces coming together, and if so, what was it that made this connection meaningful?

photos courtesy of Eduardo Alexander Rabel

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The Dodge Poetry Festival dates have been announced! We hope you join us for the Poetry Festival in Newark October 7 – 10, 2010. For more information, and to become a Friend of the Festival, please visit the Poetry website.

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Elaine Rastocky, Program Associate

If you’re an art teacher looking for the perfect interdisciplinary, service art project, read on!

Helen Phillips Cole, a Dodge Visual Artist/Educator Fellow used a $1,000 mini-grant from the Foundation to engage her students in creating art for a cause (actually, two causes). Using the mosaic tiles at artist Izaiah Zagar’s home as inspiration, Keansburg High School students employed their skills and talent to contribute to their local and global communities. (more…)