Education Week - May 21, 2014 - 13

children a chance to express themselves,
verbally or otherwise.
"It allows you time and space to
notice things happening in your
classroom, to tune in to each student
and see what they're doing,"
Ms. Rosenberry said. "It's really
easy, with students with these
types of special needs, to say they
don't have an opinion. But if you
slow down, you can see Ian is looking
at the pink boomwhacker," and
he may want to use it.
Research 'Hard to Come By'
According to Philip Courtney, the
chief executive officer of the Urban
Arts Partnership, the research
being conducted on ease, as written
into the federal i3 grant, "is the
largest research project being done
in the country in how arts intersect
with special education."
Kristen Engebretsen, the arts
education program manager at
Americans for the Arts, a national
arts-advocacy group, who has been
tracking the ease work along with
the two other arts programs that
received i3 grants, agrees.
"Quality research for arts education
with special-needs students is
really hard to come by. It's such a
small niche," she said.
Rob Horowitz, the associate director
of the Center for Arts Education
Research at Teachers College,
Columbia University, who
heads the ease research project, is
conducting two impact studies-
one looking at student scores on
the state's alternative assessment
for students with severe disabilities
and another on measures of
social-emotional learning. In addition,
he's conducting what he calls
an "extensive qualitative study" in
which teachers rate and describe
student progress weekly.
"It's a very large set of data," Mr.
Horowitz said. "There were over
14,000 submissions last year." He
and a half-dozen other researchers
are conducting classroom observations
as well.
As of now, the results have been
encouraging, he said.
"The evidence is strong so far
that, in fact, these activities are
helping kids communicate and
develop socialization skills in new
ways," said Mr. Horowitz. The 201213
results found that between 77
percent and 84 percent of students
participating regularly in ease activities
have made progress in each
of the following areas: communication,
socialization, compliance with
directions, time spent on task, and
engagement in school activities.
While the academic-testing results
won't come in until next year,
Mr. Horowitz said the program has
also shown "positive effects" on students'
goals for their individualized
education programs.
The Urban Arts Partnership
also has begun piloting the ease
program in the Los Angeles Unified
School District. In 2013, the
lausd began moving hundreds of
students with special needs from
separate schools to neighborhood
schools to comply with federal and
state regulations and a 1996 court
decree to reduce the number of
stand-alone centers. The district
looked to the arts partnership for
help in training its art teachers to
work with students who have severe
needs.
The New York City group is now
in its second year of providing professional
development in the Los
Angeles district. Twelve teachers
were involved the first year; now
approximately 45 teachers are receiving
training.
Ms. London of District 75 says
more teachers in the New York City
district have been asking for training
as well. About 100 or so teachers this
school year attended professional-development
sessions for ease, though
without the follow-up, in-class coaching
that teachers involved in the research
study received.
Further, Mr. Courtney said the
Urban Arts Partnership is aiming
to bring the program to prekindergarten
classrooms, too. The
timing could be opportune: New
York Mayor Bill de Blasio has announced
plans to bring universal
pre-K to the city, and his schools
chancellor, Carmen Fariña, has
said she wants to see improvements
in both arts education and
special education.
In addition, next year, when the
federal grant funding dries up, the
program will continue to expand its
reach by making the lesson plans
available online for free.
In-Class Performance
For now, though, teachers in
District 75 are most concerned
about what's working in their own
classrooms. Shenika Aspinall, who
teaches 4th graders with autism at
Public School 176X and just completed
her first year of ease training,
said she was skeptical of the
program at first.
"I wasn't too sure how well my
students would follow directions,
and felt they might be overstimulated,"
she said.
But she's seen an increase in
spontaneous language and patience
in her classroom, and is now
a big ease proponent.
"I was very surprised to see they
did exhibit self-control and how
calming the ease activities were,"
Ms. Aspinall said of her students.
The music and singing, in particular,
she said, have helped reduce
behavioral problems. In fact, she
now often puts on smooth jazz in
the background to help students
settle down.
Ms. Aspinall said the program
has also rejuvenated her as a
teacher.
"With common-core [standards]
and assessments, as a teacher, you
feel like your creativity has been
taken away," she said. "What I like
about ease is that it's brought the
fun back."
Coverage of leadership, expanded
learning time, and arts learning is
supported in part by a grant from
The Wallace Foundation, at www.
wallacefoundation.org. Education Week
retains sole editorial control over the
content of this coverage.
Great
b change
egins with
great
ideas.
Organizational leadership gives
me that M.Ed.background,
a business background and
a teaching background. I have
a lot of options.
Shaka Dickerson, M.Ed.
organizational leadership
'INNOVATION' GRANTS FUEL ARTS EDUCATION
The Everyday Arts for Special Education initiative in New York City is one of three arts education
plans to win a grant in 2010 under the Investing in Innovation, or i3, competition. Another
New York City program was selected, as well as a project in Beaverton, Ore.
Arts for Learning Lessons Project
$4 million over five years.
This project, in the 13,000-student
Beaverton, Ore., school district, is
designed to use the arts to improve
literacy for students in grades 3-5.
Arts Achieve: Impacting Student
Success in the Arts
$4.4 million over five years.
Studio in a School, an arts education nonprofit in New York City,
partnered with other arts groups and the city school system to
create benchmark assessments in visual arts, music, dance,
and theater for grades 5, 8, and high school.
Teachers learn to integrate drama, music,
dance, and other arts into reading and
writing lessons, with mentoring from
trained teaching artists. The grant
includes a research component, conducted
by WestEd.
The formative and summative assessments are aligned to
academic standards and will eventually be available online for
all teachers. Also, teachers receive professional development
and participate in learning communities.
-SOURCES: BEAVERTON SCHOOL DISTRICT; STUDIO IN A SCHOOL
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Education Week - May 21, 2014

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