Agency News

Better art education in Maine: assessing Partners in Arts & Learning

This spring the Maine Arts Commission is evaluating its Partners in Arts & Learning grant program. The grants support learning in and through the arts in K-12 schools across Maine. Since its beginning in 1999, the Partners in Arts & Learning program has granted more than a million dollars to schools across Maine. Partners in Arts & Learning is a planning assistance and matching grant program that is available to all public school systems in Maine. It encourages schools to work together to provide students with more arts education during their school careers. The program also supports professional development in arts education for teachers through cooperative planning among schools within a district.

Evaluating the program will help the Maine Arts Commission learn who uses the program and how, as well as the effectiveness of the program and how it might be improved. In particular, the assessment will look into the program's value in helping meet arts in education goals based on Maine Learning Results.

One of the early responses to the assessment is from Dr. Trudy Wilson, coordinator of the art education program at the University of Southern Maine. She is also co-director of the Maine Art Educators Association.

"Students have benefited from Partners in Arts & Learning through increased learning opportunities in the arts," says Wilson. "Teachers and school administrators have a much better picture of arts resources in their communities once they have completed the Partners in Arts & Learning arts assessment survey. Partners in Arts & Learning provides more opportunities for teachers to include arts education in their programming/curricula. I think the concept is sound but schools may lose momentum because of the participation schedule. I wish [the program] could be available on a yearly or every-other-year basis rather than the three-year rotation."

Maine Arts Commission staff and an evaluation consultant are interviewing a wide range of people who have been involved in the program - teachers, visiting artists and more. They are also reviewing a sample of the reports provided by school districts that participated in the program.

Look for results of the assessment in an upcoming issue of MaineArtsMag.