10/ 2006 - 9/ 2010: SETTING THE STAGE FOR SUCCES (SSS)
Arts Centered Education for Special Needs Students And English Language Learners in Inclusion Classes
funded through a grant by the US Department of Education):

Region 7 of the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE), home of over 137,000 students in Staten Island and Southern Brooklyn is collaborating with, MNMP on a four-year, interdisciplinary, integrative arts initiative: Setting the Stage for Success (SSS), a standards-based program for English Language Learners (ELLs), Special Education inclusion classes, and the arts educators and classroom teachers who service them. SSS is a program designed to encourage students' creative inquiry and artistic expression, using a student-created musical theater production as its organizing concept. Through a series of professional development workshops and extensive in-school support, participating teachers will learn skills and strategies across all arts disciplines (drama, music, dance, visual arts, and creative writing) to facilitate student artistic creation, based on themes from their academic curricula. Rather than viewing students as passive consumers of the arts, we seek to foster active, inquisitive, collaborative creators, capable of self expression through a variety of arts disciplines and media. In addition to increased arts competency, we also anticipate improved language facility and academic performance from participating students. In the final year of the program, a group of participating teachers will be trained to train other teachers in this curriculum to disseminate the knowledge gained throughout Region 7 and the entire NYC public school system.

10/ 2005 - 9/2008: CREATIVE & INTEGRATIVE ARTS EDUCATORS PROGRAM (CIAE)
(funded through a grant by the US Department of Education ):

New York City's Public School District 75, which serves 23,000 students with special needs, 89% of whom are Title 1 eligible, is collaborating with MNMP on the Creative and Integrative Arts Educators professional development program (CIAE).

CIAE is a professional development program designed to encourage students’ creative inquiry and artistic expression, using a musical theater production as its organizing concept. Through a series of professional development workshops and extensive in-school support, participating teachers will learn skills and strategies across all arts disciplines (drama, music, dance, visual arts, and creative writing) to facilitate student artistic creation based on themes from their academic curricula. Rather than viewing students as passive consumers of the arts, we seek to foster active, inquisitive, collaborative creators, capable of self-expression through a variety of arts disciplines and media. Our standards-based professional development model focuses each year on a group of 24 teachers, representing arts and academic teachers from eight District 75 schools, who will attend a series of intensive professional workshops. These workshops will offer both strategies for the fostering of student collaborative creation and opportunity for reflective practice and peer input.

Participants will also receive ongoing school-based support in the form of partnership with MNMP’s mentor teaching artists, as well as access to community cultural resources. At the end of each program year, participating teachers and mentoring teaching artists will develop best District 75 New York City Public Schools Creative & Integrative Arts Educators & Manhattan New Music Project practices for integrative arts education based on their classroom experiences, creating a lasting resource for all educators.

Programmatic evaluation will be conducted by Dr. Rob Horowitz, a nationally recognized arts and education researcher, and recent contributor to Critical Links: Learning in the Arts and Student Academic and Social Development, published by the Arts Education Partnership.

7/2003 - 6/2007: 21st CENTURY LEARNING COMMUNITIES PROGRAM
(funded through a grand by NY State)

New York City's Region 7, in partnership with MNMP, Arts Horizons, the Liberian Cultural Center, and other organizations is running ARTCenters, an after school and summer camp program, at IS27, 49, 51 and 61 as well as at PS 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 31.  The center serves students and their families who live in low-income housing developments of Staten Island in New York City and whose children are enrolled at those schools. The community has a high proportion of immigrants from West Africa (including Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria) whose children have experienced severe interruption in their schooling and whose families need assistance in acculturating to the U.S.. The student population at these schools has a 91.9% poverty rate, a rate of suspensions and incidents over double that of the New York City average, and a high rate of illiteracy reflected in the lowest reading scores in Staten Island. The after school programs of the proposed ARTCenters provide a tapestry of instruction using creative and inquiry-based approaches and woven through and enriched by the arts.  Cultural learning experiences will enable children to explore, express and improve themselves, their community and their world. Students will participate in hands-on arts activities designed to address the State Learning Standards in language arts, mathematics, science as well as the arts; and enhance self-esteem and socialization skills.

The centers' approach will incorporate the cultural values of the community and energize expression by weaving the arts with the development of literacy and other area of the curriculum Student learning is project based, culminating in multidisciplinary creations that can be shared with families and the community. Students engage in research and use the Internet to link arts activities with social studies learning. Peer leaders from the higher grades serve as peer leaders in the program who learn and carry out role-playing skills and impart life skills to their peers.

After school instruction to students is supplemented by an array of family oriented activities and parent support services on Saturdays.  The ARTCenters provide family literacy activities for parents and children.  Parents are able to take Adult Basic Education, ESL and GED.  Support services, made possible by an on-site social worker, include counseling and referrals for offsite medical, health, housing and legal services.  Saturdays will become the occasion for Family Nights centered around student exhibits and performances and linking children's art projects to the community.  Families also attend a special cultural event within New York City each year.

An Advisory Council of participating organizations articulates the framework by which all stakeholders work together and develop strategies to motivate children at-risk.  MNMP and Arts Horizons, which serves 800 schools with multidisciplinary arts programs and a participant in initiatives including the New York City Annenberg Challenge and the New Jersey ACES (Arts create Excellent Schools, are themajor provider of the arts services on site. Region 7 retained St. John'sUniversity, under the direction of Dr. Deborah Saldana, to conduct an independent evaluation of the project

10/2002 - 12/2005: CREATIVE MUSIC EDUCATORS PROGRAM
(funded by the US Department of Education)

MNMP was lead partner with New York City's Public School District 75 in a three-year project, Creative Music Educators, funded by the U.S. Department of Education to provide professional development for New York City music teachers working in Special Education classrooms. The project was one of only nine awards around the nation under this competition, and provided $265,000 per year.  Funds from the New York City Department of Education's Project ARTS were used to augment federal funding.  The purpose of the federal initiative was to support the development of high-quality professional development programs for K-12 music educators and establish model professional development programs based upon innovative methodologies and scientifically-based research.

MNMP organized a mentorship experience for teachers in music composition approaches that support standards, connect to curriculum and make imaginative use of digital technologies. According to Paul Nash, MNMP’s late founding director and co-author of the proposal: "This grant provided a unique opportunity to undertake a whole range of activities to empower children’s innate creativity.  Creative processes in the arts are under girded by the same sense of inquiry, experimentation, and discovery that we associate with science and mathematics. Providing experiential pathways to creativity is an essential tool to spurring children’s growth and learning in all areas.  As a part of this effort, this project will enable us to demonstrate how technology can be used to enable children without previous exposure to music to create meaningful artistic products. We are also interested in providing access to a variety of resources, some innate like the voice, and others involving computer and MIDI technology in order to test, demonstrate, and validate these approaches using different media that will be of value to all New York City public school teachers."

Dr Robert Horowitz, nationally renowned arts education researcher has been named program evaluator.  Dr. Horowitz is best known for his research in “Champions of Change” sponsored by The Arts Education Partnership and President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities.

RESOURCES:

• Click here to view Mr Horowitz's final evaluation report of the CME program.
• Click here to view curriculum resources for Alternative Assessment Music Teachers.

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