June 2010
Sir Ken Robinson: Bring on the Learning Revolution
May 2010 | TED - In this poignant, funny follow-up to his 2006 talk, Sir Ken Robinson makes the case for a radical shift from standardized schools to personalized learning -- creating conditions where kids' natural talents can flourish.
PA to Receive $141 Million to Turn Around Lowest Achieving Schools
June 2010 | U.S. Department of Education - U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan today announced that Pennsylvania will receive $141 million to turn around its persistently lowest achieving schools through the School Improvement Grants (SIG) program. These funds are part of the $3.5 billion that will be made available to states this spring from money set aside in the 2009 budget and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
"When a school continues to perform in the bottom five percent of the state and isn't showing signs of growth or has graduation rates below 60 percent, something dramatic needs to be done," said Duncan. "Turning around our worst performing schools is difficult for everyone but it is critical that we show the courage to do the right thing by kids."
The $141,090,171 made available to Pennsylvania is being distributed by formula to the state and will then be competed out by the state to school districts. In order for a school district to apply for these funds, it must have a state-identified "persistently lowest achieving" or a Tier III school -- a school that has failed to meet annual yearly progress for two years and is not identified as a persistently lowest achieving school. Full Press Release
Participate in the National Endowment for the Arts Survey on Assessing Student Learning in the Arts
June 2010 | ArtsEd Digest - WestEd, on behalf of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), requests your participation in a survey regarding assessment in the arts.
Through this project, the NEA seeks to collect and analyze information on current practices and trends in the assessment of student learning in the arts. Identifying needs is the first step in moving toward meeting these needs and to help advance the state of student assessment in the arts in this country.
Survey topics include:
- assessment tools you have used in the past and their usefulness
- what you consider to be the needs in the field
- what you need in terms of arts assessment
Responses will only be published in aggregate form. To access the survey, please click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your web browser, and hit “start” to begin the survey.
http://www.surveythrutheweb.com/nea/ccsso
When you log into the survey, you will be assigned a unique access code so you can complete the survey in more than one sitting; you may return to the survey and resume where you left off at any time using this access code. Please complete the survey by June 30, 2010.
SAS Portal Now Includes Arts Instruction Videos
May 2010 | PA Department of Education - The Pennsylvania Department of Education is pleased to announce that the SAS portal now includes video vignettes in dance and music with theatre and visual arts in the works. These videos feature instructional strategies from teachers in Pennsylvania classrooms. For direct access, go here: http://www.pdesas.org/Main/Instruction.
Corporate Executives Still Seeking Creativity in the Workforce
May 2010 | Bloomberg Businessweek - "A survey from IBM's Institute for Business Value shows that CEOs value one leadership competency above all others. Can you guess what it is?
What do chief executive officers really want? The answer bears important consequences for management as well as companies' customers and shareholders. The qualities that a CEO values most in the company team set a standard that affects everything from product development and sales to the long-term success of an enterprise.
There is compelling new evidence that CEOs' priorities in this area are changing in important ways. According to a new survey of 1,500 chief executives conducted by IBM's Institute for Business Value (NYSE: IBM - News), CEOs identify "creativity" as the most important leadership competency for the successful enterprise of the future.
That's creativity—not operational effectiveness, influence, or even dedication. Coming out of the worst economic downturn in their professional lifetimes, when managerial discipline and rigor ruled the day, this indicates a remarkable shift in attitude. It is consistent with the study's other major finding: Global complexity is the foremost issue confronting these CEOs and their enterprises. The chief executives see a large gap between the level of complexity coming at them and their confidence that their enterprises are equipped to deal with it.
Until now creativity has generally been viewed as fuel for the engines of research or product development, not the essential leadership asset that must permeate an enterprise." Full Article
Pittsburgh Emerging Arts Leaders Survey
The steering committee for the Pittsburgh Emerging Arts Leaders has created a survey in order to better understand the needs of arts management professionals in the region and what professionals are looking for in an Emerging Arts Leaders network. Please take the time to fill out the survey. It will only take you 5 -10 minutes and helps us tremendously as we move forward in the coming year. Survey Link: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/TQ7PQZH
