Latino Kindergartners' Social Skills Found Strong

Take a look at this report published in Education Week. Mary Ann Zehr discusses a study published in the May issue of Developmental Psychology, that highlights Latino students strengths in social skills as they enter kindergarten.

It was this quote that struck me...

"Such results indicate that schools should build on Latino children’s social skills to further their cognitive development, Mr. Fuller said."

Hmm, social skills and cognitive development in kindergarten students -- what better way to support this learning than through the arts! And yet over and over we turn to language acquisition as the sole objective for our Latino students, negatively impacting the social skills they are bringing to school, and missing the extraordinary opportunity to build on these skills (not to mention bringing JOY to learning) through the visual and performing arts.

We must continue to advocate for equal access to arts education for all students! How can we get spread this message?

Follow-up Information regarding AB 2446

A message from the California Alliance for Arts Education:

Thank you for your quick and powerful response to our action alert. In just three days, 770 advocates wrote to the 19 members of the Assembly Appropriations Committee resulting in over 14,000 messages opposing AB 2446!

Good News: On Wednesday, April 21, 2010 the Committee voted to delay making a decision on AB 2446, by placing it on the suspense calendar. A final decision on the bill will be made in mid-May.

In the news: Opinion leaders are picking up on our message. On Monday, Richard Kessler (a self-described "Big supporter of career and technical education) described AB 2446 as "completely backwards to a 21st century career and technical education." On Wednesday LA Times Art Critic Christopher Knight's wrote about the flaws of this "foolish bill."

Help us continue the fight: Share the articles above with your friends and networks. Be ready to act when the bill comes up for a vote in May. We'll be contacting you again soon with next steps for opposing this bill.

The California Alliance for Arts Education

Important Message From Califorinia Alliance for Arts Education

Unfortunately, the Assembly Education Committee voted to support Assembly Bill 2446 (Furutani), which significantly undermines access to arts education. On Wednesday, it will go to the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

We Need to Stop this Legislation NOW.

The bill would diminish the number of students benefitting from arts education by adding career technical education as an alternative to the existing graduation requirement. While we support efforts to create pathways to the workforce for students, it must not be at the expense of arts education. Arts education contributes to higher test scores across all subjects and reduces truancy and dropout rates for all students, not just those who have identified the arts as a career.

Deliver a strong message of opposition to Speaker of the Assembly John Perez, to the bill's author, Warren Furutani, and to members of the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

Click here to send your message!

Educational Equity and Social Justice as Smart Economic Policy: A lecture by Martin Carnoy

The issues Dr. Carnoy will address during his lecture at SSU on 4/1/10 directly relate to our Arts Advocacy efforts.

Thursday, April 1st
7:00 pm
Person Theater, Sonoma State University
Free

Contact Pam Van Halsema, School of Education, (707) 664-2132 for more information.

Here is an excerpt from the flyer:

The title of the lecture is "Educational Equity and Social Justice as Smart Economic Policy: An International Perspective."

Dr. Carnoy is a labor economist with a special interest in the political economy of the educational system. Studying all aspects of educational policy, and focusing more specifically on what happens inside schools that affects students and their ability to learn,

Dr. Carnoy has done extensive research specific to diversity within schools internationally, and offers a great deal of insight to anyone interested in discussing his research at his lecture, in which he will be addressing the issues of minority education, both here in the United States and internationally.

Dr. Carnoy focuses his research on the changing economic value of education as well as aspects of educational production such as financing and resource allocation and even school choice. The results of his research can be found in his several books, and will be the topic of discussion at his lecture.

Click here for further details.