Looking Ahead: A Next-Step Agenda
Cultural leaders currently are searching for an approach to assessment that enriches understanding of effectiveness and provides programs with an ongoing tool for evaluating and improving their practices. To this end, Project Co-Arts at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education began a study in 1991 of community arts education centers with sustained programs in economically disadvantaged communities. The University published in-depth portraits of five exemplary centers in Safe Havens: Portraits of Educational Effectiveness in Community Arts Centers that Focus on Education in Economically Disadvantaged Communities. Harvard also developed and published in The Co-Arts Assessment Handbook, an assessment technique that uses assessment forums and "process folios" to describe effectiveness.
With increased competition for fewer dollars, however, finding ways to measure results takes on a new urgency. Several nationwide initiatives expect to yield important information.
The GE Fund, both individually and in collaboration with the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, funds several research projects whose goal is to demonstrate the impact of arts education.
Americans for the Arts is collaborating on two studies with local arts agencies to evaluate arts programs that also have social goals. The first study, a partnership among the City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department, the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, will measure the effectiveness of arts programs that are designed to address public safety issues and reduce crime. Evaluation and research methods for this study are being developed and conducted by the Rand Corporation.
The second multiyear study is a collaboration among the Regional Arts and Culture Council in Portland, Oregon; the City of San Antonio, Texas, Department of Arts and Cultural Affairs; and the Fulton County Arts Council in Atlanta, Georgia. The project seeks to develop and test models for evaluating programs designed to improve the lives and reduce criminal activity of at-risk youth. As a portion of the study, the training for artists and social service personnel also will be evaluated. This project will culminate in the development of a handbook to guide additional agencies in community arts program development and artist training. Startup funds for the project were provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, and the U.S. Department of Justice is an active partner in its evaluation component.
Strategies for developing and funding assessments must be an integral component of program planning.
Donors can play an important role in ensuring the evaluation of community arts programs for at-risk youth both by funding this component of projects and by providing technical assistance for developing useful, practical and credible research.
