The Iowa Alliance for Art Education (IAAE) is an organization founded on the principles that art education is essential to a well rounded curriculum for every school. It focuses great effort on advocacy for arts education and a strong mentorship program that is inclusive and beneficial to students and educators alike. Recently, the organization's capstone program “Arts ARE education” focuses wholly on art integration into standard curriculum through showing the benefits of art in the classroom as well as the lasting effect art education has on the students. The mentorship program has been long effective at guiding educators towards art integration into their classrooms and communities. The IAAE is continuing today to make an impact on art education throughout Iowa.
The IAAE’s mentorship program is accessible, and rewarding. “The purpose of this program is to continue to improve the quality of arts education in Iowa through mentoring assistance of beginning arts teachers. Increased opportunities for success have and will benefit these teachers, the students in their classrooms, the local school district, and the state. An important trait of teacher leadership is to create an environment in which quality can flourish. This program continues to foster and sustain this environment for our beginning teachers.” (IAAE) While the program is crucial for all educators, new mentors are given the opportunity to impact educators in a truly meaningful way. “Mentoring is more than the transfer of advice, knowledge and insights. The relationship offers reciprocal benefits for mentors willing to invest their time in developing another professional. As well as the personal satisfaction of sharing their skills and experience with a willing learner, being involved in mentoring also provides some tangible benefits that can reward mentors professionally.” (IAAE) Mentoring continues to be the backbone of the IAAE, and it’s impact is felt by all educators that have been rewarded by the program.
The Arts ARE Education campaign could not be more in need at the moment in a students educational career. The arts are being stripped from schools nationwide due to budget shortfalls, a focus on remediation, and a continued need for PPE that is unique to performing arts classrooms. While the pandemic has spelt disaster for art classrooms the past few years, the decline of art has been a long time in the making. For years the focus has been on math and science test scores. With the added pressure of increasing these metrics, teachers and administrators have made the decision, consciously, or subconsciously to slowly erode the access to art education in schools. This has culminated in the eventual elimination of art education in many schools in the Quad Cities region. This campaign states that The Arts ARE education and must remain central to a well-rounded education and fully funded to support the well-being of all students and the entire school community. The ultimate goal of the program is that Iowa school boards and communities throughout the state support funding for school-based arts education programs. The program’s call to action for educators is to mobilize colleagues, teachers, administrators, students, legislators, and all community members who believe that school-based education in dance, media arts, music, theater, and visual arts must remain available to all students.
The Iowa Arts Education Data Project Dashboard which is supported by the IAAE paints a grim picture of art education in Iowa currently. Encompassing 352 schools and 148,686 students. Only 80,520 students are enrolled in some type of arts education. This is a 54 percent enrollment rate. Broken down by type of art the picture looks even darker. Music, known as the most popular art form in most schools, has a 30% enrollment rate. Visual arts has a 30% enrollment rate. Theater sadly only has a 3% enrollment rate. Dance does not even register as a percentage, showing a 0%. These metrics show the true state of art education in the state of Iowa. The changes and programs championed by the IAAE are not only crucial for rescuing a spiraling staple of our society, it is attempting to rescue and resuscitate the one thing that every employer in the nation states is a large factor in their hiring process. The damage the state of Iowa is doing to students by not including art education will not be felt today. It will be noticed a decade from now when employers can not innovate fast enough to keep up with competitors. It will be felt when the next big invention is not realized because students of today did not experience the life changing ability of art education. The future is grim, but companies like the IAAE are fighting to bring back the one class that could help alleviate the future impact of a lack of arts education.
As the umbrella organization for all state arts organizations the IAAE “provides a unified message with strength in numbers, acting as one state arts education advocacy association. This includes continual contact and coordinated leadership with all of the major arts education associations, the Iowa Department of Education, the Iowa Arts Council, the Iowa Association of School Boards, the School Administrators of Iowa and AEA consultants responsible for arts support in our schools, who operate as collaborative and advisory organizations for IAAE.” (IAAE)
Works Cited
Education, A. (2022). Advancing the heart of Education. Iowa Alliance for Arts Education. Retrieved May 17, 2022, from https://iowaalliance4artsed.org/
