NASBE Features Yael Silk

Arts Ed Collaborative’s own Yael Silk is heavily featured in NASBE’s January 2020 edition of the State Education Standard. The issue focuses on the links between arts integration and student success, and is now available in full online.

The article “Arts in Turnaround Strategies” showcases the work of Turnaround Arts and A+ Schools (the North Carolina-based organization focused on arts integration, not to be confused with our local A+ Schools advocating for PPS students and families). The arts-integration-focused A+ Schools is committed to using the arts to “turn around low-performing schools” in order to “improve school climate, culture, and academic achievement and to deepen instruction and engagement with students and parents.” Both organizations have found that combining the arts with non-arts classes has helped students make cross-disciplinary connections and improve test scores. Yael was a coauthor of the Turnaround Arts pilot evaluation in 2014.

Although some districts are afraid to implement these changes due to fear of putting their state test scores on the line, Yael says she has seen a shift in schools that have implemented these changes. “I had teachers and administrators telling me that this was the first time that they’d been working at the school that they were feeling hopeful,” she says. “This was the kind of investment that changed the mind-set of the teachers, the students, and the parents when they came to visit.”

Yael’s article “A Decade of Federal Arts in Education Funding: Trends, Analysis, and the Story behind the First 10 Years” is also cited in “The Role of Arts Integration and Education in Improving Student Outcomes”.

You can read what else she has to say in this month’s edition of the State Education Standard. Kudos to NASBE for dedicating their latest issue to this essential topic, and thank you for including Arts Ed Collaborative!