Listen to Varissa speak about parent and community involvement with Keep Arts in Schools!

Varissa L. McMickens, Executive Director, was invited to present a webniar with Keep Arts in Schools called Igniting Community Action for Arts Learning.  This webinar brought together Erin Offord, from Dallas Arts Learning Inisitaves in Dallas Texas and Varissa's expertise in the area of parent and community engagement.

Good Evening.  I am Varissa McMickens, Executive Director of the DC Arts and Humanities Education Collaborative.  We’re a collective voice of 80 arts and cultural organizations and individuals across the DC metropolitan area.  Our mission is to provide DCPS and DC’s chartered public schools with equitable access to high quality arts and humanities education for the growth of the whole child.  Chancellor Rhee, I thank you and the other members of the panel for the opportunity to participate in this hearing.

For a moment, I want to ask each of you to think back to your most recent arts experience.  Was it in a great hall, a school auditorium or classroom, a church, synagogue or mosque, or an awe-inspiring museum?  Wherever it took place, I want you to recall the way that experience made you feel, and as I continue my comments, hold onto that feeling.

The arts play a vital role in the District of Columbia.  From Mayor Fenty’s recent “Summit on the Creative Economy,” to the role and responsibilities of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities; to the many museums, monuments and international arts and cultural treasures that draw millions of visitors from around the world; to the bustling and vibrant theater, music, dance and visual arts communities that fill and thrill every quadrant of this city…  The arts are an integral part of the fabric of the District of Columbia. 

Arts and cultural literacy should be a standard component of quality education in DC.  So it should come as no surprise, that I am here this evening to say that the arts also play an important and vital role in educating the children and youth of the Nation’s Capital, and that the proven and potential impacts of arts education are more than worth an increased investment within the DCPS budget. 

Providing and exposing students to high-quality visual and performing arts experiences brings standards, curriculum, and instruction to life in and out of the classroom. Attending cultural events and participating in hands on activities in the arts and humanities can enhance students critical-thinking skills and deepen their understanding of the creative process. These skills also provide potential employers with a talented, versatile and well-prepared workforce, ready to meet the challenges that lie ahead in the 21^st Century world market.  Why?  Because the arts invoke innovation, inquiry, and inspiration.  The arts impact students’ relationships with self and with others in positive and long-lasting ways.  The arts transform lives.

Unique and engaging professional development in and through the arts also prepares teachers and administrators to better connect the arts to other core subjects and to their curriculum.  So, it is my hope, or rather my plea, that DCPS strongly consider the significant and transformative power that the arts and humanities can and should have upon teaching and learning in this city.  I also ask that as you consider this impact, you will allocate increased funding within the budget to support a continuum of arts education that includes arts experiences, arts instruction and arts integration (teaching dual objectives in an art form and in another content area to enhance students’ learning in both areas) for every student in the district, not just those who live in economically advantaged

neighborhoods and circumstances.  Such an investment will result in countless lives changed.  I know this because I am like many of the students who live in this city.  My public school teachers, principals and administrators believed and invested in arts education as a standard of educational excellence; and for this level of commitment, I am eternally grateful.  It is, in great part, the impact of arts education that has made it possible for me to sit here before you today.  My life, my mind, my future, and my very existence have been and continue to be transformed by the presence and power of the arts. 

In December 2007, the Office of the State Superintendent for Education will consider the adoption of new arts standards for the District of Columbia.  The teachers, principals, artists, education leaders, and non-profit arts and cultural partners, who participated in the development of these new standards over the past two years, see their work as an important first step toward establishing an overall arts education plan for DC.  In partnership with DCPS, the DC Collaborative and its members and community partners remain committed to contributing to and supporting high quality education in Washington, DC.  Please treat this as a matter of equity and ensure that the new DCPS budget includes and supports the arts as a standard of educational excellence. 

Thank you.

Varissa L. McMickens

Executive Director

DC Arts and Humanities Education Collaborative

202-416-8849

Varissa@dccollaborative.org

www.dccollaborative.org