(BALTIMORE, MD) February 09, 2022 – Arts for Learning Maryland (formerly Young Audiences of Maryland) announced that it has been awarded a nearly $4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to demonstrate arts-integrated school programs that improve academic performance and emotional well-being of students in low-wealth schools.

Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) informed Arts for Learning Maryland of the five-year $3,970,442 grant award to work with Prince George’s County Public Schools for Start with the Art: Arts Integration + Co-Teaching — A Transformative Approach to Increasing Academic Achievement and Fostering Socioemotional Development in Elementary Students. Arts for Learning Maryland, a nonprofit organization that enriches the lives and education of 180,000 Maryland children each year through arts integration experiences, is the only organization in Maryland to have been awarded one of the 30 EIR grants in FY2021.

The DOE Education Innovation and Research grant – the largest in Arts for Learning Maryland’s 70-year history – will allow the organization to research, demonstrate and model the effectiveness of using arts and artists in Kindergarten through third-grade classrooms in Prince George’s County, Maryland.

The project will establish and sustain collaboration between Prince George’s County Public School classroom teachers and Arts for Learning Maryland teaching artists as they plan and deliver lessons, including re-engaging students in the classroom following educational disruption precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Start with the Art will incorporate four arts-integrated instructional strategies that have been demonstrated to foster the academic achievement and socioemotional development of students, particularly students placed at risk by poverty: using the arts to foster students’ engagement in the classroom; using arts experiences to allow students to experience a wider range of emotional experience than is often possible in regular classroom activities; using students’ experiences of setbacks and failure in their artistic work as a way to develop students’ perseverance; and capitalizing on students’ collaborative work to foster students’ positive peer relationships.

As part of Start with the Art, classroom teachers will participate in a Training Institute offered as an extension of the Prince George’s Artist Teaching Institute (PGATI), a long running, highly respected summer professional development experience.

Start with the Art will begin in early 2022 with recruiting the initial cohort of schools, classroom teachers, teaching artists, and instructional coaches who will participate in the pilot. The first program for students will be offered in Fall 2023, with a goal to engage 2,500 students in kindergarten through third grade who are living in or near poverty and are attending school in PGCPS.

Start with the Art will be developed in collaboration with Prince George’s County Public Schools (PGCPS), WolfBrown, and West Chester University (WCU). The program’s principal investigators from Wolf Brown and WCU will co-lead all aspects of the evaluation, including recruitment, assignment, data collection, analysis, reporting, and dissemination to research audiences. They have collaborated extensively on other projects at the intersection of arts education and the early development placed at risk by poverty.

The EIR grant accounts for 75% of the total cost ($4.962,000) of the project through 2026.

The U.S. Department of Education Innovation and Research Program provides funding to create, develop, implement, replicate, or take to scale entrepreneurial, evidence-based, field-initiated innovations to improve student achievement and attainment for high-need students; and rigorously evaluate such innovations. The program is designed to generate and validate solutions to persistent educational challenges and to support the expansion of effective solutions to serve substantially larger numbers of students.

Said Stacie Sanders Evans, president and CEO of Arts for Learning Maryland, “This grant is a testament to our artists, staff, and board, as well as the powerful work happening within our community. It recognizes the two strategies that have been at the heart of our Summer Arts for Learning Academy – collaborative lesson planning and co-teaching – and that has resulted in academic and personal growth for nearly 9,000 students at Title I schools. Start with the Art will build additional evidence of the transformational impact that our work has on children so that even more children will have access to this kind of learning in the future.“

In informing Arts for Learning Maryland of their grant award, U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) said “The quality of our students’ education should not be determined by their zip code. As we continue working to invest in public education, I’m proud to support the work of organizations like Arts for Learning Maryland that take an innovative approach to helping all our students succeed. Arts for Learning Maryland’s critical work enriches students’ lives, sets them up for future success, and helps them achieve academically through hands-on engagement in the arts and their community. I will continue working to support Maryland students and to bring educational opportunities to our communities.”

“The PGCPS Department of Creative and Performing Arts has enjoyed a wonderful partnership with Arts for Learning Maryland for many years,” said Chief Executive Officer Dr. Monica Goldson. “This collaboration will support both our educators and youngest learners through arts integration experiences providing alternative, creative, and engaging instruction to meet the needs of diverse learners.”

About Arts for Learning Maryland
Arts for Learning Maryland (formerly Young Audiences of Maryland) is a nonprofit organization devoted to enriching the lives and education of Maryland’s youth through educational and culturally diverse arts programs. Through Arts for Learning, professional teaching artists from all disciplines partner with educators, schools, and school districts to provide, on average, over 300,000 hours of learning in, through, and about the arts to more than 185,000 Maryland students annually.