OUR HISTORY

The Center for Arts Education (CAE) was established in 1996 to restore and sustain arts education in New York City’s schools after two decades of system-wide cutbacks in funding for classroom arts programs. Since its founding, CAE has created long term partnerships between schools and the City’s cultural institutions;funded sustainable arts programs in hundreds of schools; provided professional development to teachers, artists and administrators; opened doors for high school students exploring arts careers; and published guides for educators to replicate the successes of their peers.

To date, The Center for Arts Education has provided nearly $40 million in direct financial support to New York City public schools and cultural organizations. We have worked directly with approximately 500 schools, including over 490,000 students, 21,000 teachers, 75,000 parents, and 400 cultural institutions and organizations. Through all of these efforts, CAE has helped to usher in a renaissance in arts education taking place in the City’s schools, where more students are learning how to act, make music, write plays, dance, draw and think creatively than ever before.

In the early 1990s, the Board of Education, the City’s cultural institutions and private-sector foundations grew increasingly alarmed by the dire state of arts education in New York City schools. Prior to 1975, New York City school system boasted a citywide arts curriculum, in which students had opportunities to take part in dance, theater, music, visual and literary arts at every stage of their education. The fiscal budget crisis of the 1970s immediately eroded this commitment. Draconian budget cuts resulted in arts teachers losing their jobs and the gradual abandonment of the arts as an essential element of students’ academic development. For the next twenty years, hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers experienced a K-12 education without opportunities to receive instruction in arts education, aside from schools with private funding.

In 1993, Ambassador Walter H. Annenberg announced the single largest gift ever made to American public education: The Annenberg Challenge, a half-billion dollar, five-year challenge grant designed to energize and support promising efforts at school reform throughout the country. When Ambassador Annenberg suggested that the time was right to establish New York City as an "arts education challenge site" members of both the public and private sectors were ready to address the inherent deficiencies of a K-12 education that did not include
the arts. In a unique collaboration, New York City’s Board of Education and Department of Cultural Affairs envisioned a five-year plan for the Annenberg Arts and Education Initiative. This plan, created under the guidance of consulting firm Artsvision, proposed a sustainable model for collaboration among teachers, artists, cultural institutions, community organizations and colleges. When the Annenberg Foundation responded favorably to the proposal, The Center for Arts Education was born.

In March of 1996, the initiative was kick-started by a two-to-one $12 million challenge grant from the Annenberg Foundation, to be matched by a $12 million investment each from the public and private sectors, for a total $36 million. The Center for Arts Education was created to administer this initiative, serve as a liaison and oversee the distribution of these funds to the City’s schools. CAE formed a Board of Directors that included representatives from the public sector, including the schools’ Chancellor, as well as leading members of the city’s civic, cultural and business communities. CAE established "Five Guiding Principles" to serve as guidelines in meeting its goals:

  • School Change Through the Arts
  • Arts as Part of the Core Curriculum
  • Partnership and Collaboration
  • Professional Development
  • Evaluation and Assessment

The cornerstone of this effort was the creation of "arts partnerships"
in which schools, working with orchestras, museums, dance groups, theater companies, community-based organizations and other groups to institutionalize school-wide arts programs and promote school reform. In 1997, 81 of the City’s public schools were awarded the first of these three-year "Partnership Grants" to form collaborations with these cultural and community-based organizations and create an arts curricula tailored to meet the individual needs of each school. By supporting the use of the city’s vast wealth of cultural resources, CAE provided a link that made institutions, ranging from the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the Pregones Theater Company in the South Bronx, an integral part of New York’s public
school system.

Over one-third of the City’s public schools applied for these
$75,000 grants. The City’s political leadership took note of this
overwhelming response, as well as the disappointment of those schools
who did not receive grants. In response, the Board of Education,
with support from the Mayor, created Project ARTS, the first system-wide
per capita funds for the arts since the mid-seventies. Project
ARTS, used for the training and hiring of arts teachers, as well
as arts supplies, would also lay the groundwork for the Blueprint
for Teaching and Learning in the Arts, the first Citywide arts
curriculum since the period of cutbacks.

CAE also provided professional development and public outreach.
It launched a public awareness campaign sponsored by PaineWebber
in 2000 to focus the public’s attention on the arts as an essential
component of a child’s education.

Upon witnessing the comprehensive achievements that took place
during The Center for Arts Education’s five year initiative, the
Annenberg Foundation provided another $12 million to CAE to continue
revitalizing arts education in 2001. This challenge grant was to
be matched by an additional $12 million that would be used to fund
additional rounds of Partnership grants. CAE also used this second
challenge grant to fund new programs that would permit parents
to take part in arts education, expose teenagers to arts careers,
and enable existing Partnership schools to share their successes
with other schools.

In 2002, CAE was the recipient of the Governor’s Arts Award, for outstanding
contributions to the cultural well-being of the State of New York. Other awards
have included a 2001 New York State Assembly Citation for "providing a unique
and visionary service to the community," and a 2000 proclamation from Mayor
Rudolph Giuliani declaring Thursday, March 15, 2001 as "The Center for Arts
Education Day." The Arts & Business Council presented the Visionary
Award to Chairman Laurie Tisch in 2001 for her contributions to the field, and
an Encore Award to former Executive Director Hollis Headrick for outstanding
arts management in 2000.

CAE continues to promote the capacity of the arts to improve student academic
performance, enhance communication skills, provide additional avenues to success,
forge connections between different cultures, and enable the next generation
of citizens to take part in the cultural life of a City that is also home to
many of the world’s greatest artistic institutions. In 2004, Richard Kessler,
one of the authors of the original proposal to the Annenberg Foundation, was
appointed Executive Director. Under Kessler’s leadership, CAE continues its efforts
to make quality arts instruction an essential element of every child’s education
in the New York City public schools.