Opening Minds Through the Arts (OMA) is a program that has been in
the Tucson Unified School District since 1999, and it’s been a great
success story, incorporating the arts into elementary and middle
schools’ core curricula. Joan Ashcraft is the director of fine and
performing arts for TUSD and manages OMA. For more information, visit
www.omaproject.org.
Why was OMA created?
OMA was created by some TUSD principals, artists, arts teachers and
myself. We did it in response to the No Child Left Behind legislation.
We wanted to show the educational folks that the arts are essential to
learning. There had been a lot of national research showing that many
college students credited their success in college (to) fine-arts
instruction. We wanted to actually document with TUSD students that
this is true—that the arts do make a difference in learning. We
had some private money the first year in which we were able to begin a
study using (people from the) UA as the head researchers.
How does OMA work in schools?
OMA schools operate at different levels. Bronze: There is an
arts-integration specialist at school. Silver: There is an
arts-integration specialist and some artists who work with the
children. Gold has the full implementation of all of these
components.
Where did the money come from for such a large project?
H. Eugene Jones was responsible. He had been president of the Tucson
Symphony (Orchestra) board. His frustration was seeing that the opera
and the Tucson Museum of Art and UApresents and all these
wonderful institutions that provide educational experiences for our
children didn’t collaborate. That was his initial thought. He went to a
national symphony conference and popped into a room (where people were)
talking about the Bolton School District in North Carolina, where they
used a symphony group to play on a regular basis for students. It
increased their ability in language arts. He actually sent six of us
back to see it … and we came away thinking that we could do better
and create something using not just music, but all the art forms … to
do something that would transform education for students and also boost
teachers’ ability to instruct in a creative way and not feel so tied by
the restrictions of No Child Left Behind.
Interesting.
So we started off first doing research with the UA. We were told we
wouldn’t see results for three years. We saw results within the first
year. We saw some significant differences, and children were feeling
better about themselves, and since they were feeling better about
themselves, they were willing to take more risks in trying new
things—in particular, we saw it in the math and (students)
feeling more confident that they could understand how to do math and
develop their vocabulary and be creative in writing original stories
and so forth.
When did you begin to get national recognition?
After the first year, the U.S. Department of Education put out a
grant (that) we applied for, because we thought it was right up our
alley. … We got a million-dollar grant around a three-year period. We
then formally set up with three different TUSD schools. So we had this
money that came in, and the U.S. Department of Education came in and
said, “We love the work you’re doing with the UA, but to validate it
and make it more significant, you need research to be done outside of
Arizona.”
Who did your research then?
WestEd, since 2000. … The most interesting information we learned
was that math scores of Hispanic male students improved in
second-grade, we believe from the dance instruction. The children were
learning dance patterns—adding and subtracting very quickly,
actually putting themselves, their whole body, into these patterns, so
they could physically feel it.
Was OMA affected by the overrides that didn’t pass earlier this
month?
We can’t offer arts instruction in every school, at any level. …
But thanks to the OMA Foundation, Title I money and going out and
raising money, we are able to provide for TUSD and will be able to
provide something—not fully, of course, but we’ll be able to do
something. … Every child in an OMA gold school gets the OMA program
and is exposed to art, dance, music, drama and creative writing.
Opening Minds Through the Arts was not an incidental title; we wanted
children to see the world not just in one way, but in varied ways,
thinking about the creative solutions for some of our great world
problems and thinking about how to collaborate and work with a
diversity of people.
This article appears in Nov 19-25, 2009.