Wikipedia Draft:ArtistYear

ArtistYear is dedicated to addressing inequities in Arts Education for K-12 students. To ensure that every low-income student in America has the opportunity to reap the social-emotional and academic benefits associated with arts learning, ArtistYear created a national service arts corps. We train AmeriCorps Fellows—gifted recent graduates across all artistic disciplines—and support them as full-time teaching artists at high-need schools to expand and deepen arts education for low-income students. ArtistYear is the nation's first AmeriCorps State and National program dedicated to the arts.

ArtistYear trains its Fellows to collaborate with teachers in high-poverty schools and supports them as they provide arts integration in academic subjects, after-school arts clubs, and arts interventions for at-risk youth. Each Fellow teaches about 200 K-12 students twice per week, dedicating 1,700 hours of arts education each school year to students who would otherwise have little or no arts access. This innovative strategy brings the recognized benefits of the arts to low-income youth, enhances the capacity and climate of schools, strengthens the larger community, and underscores the importance of service for the next generation of citizen-artists and arts educators.

ARTS vs. INEQUITY

Nearly 11 million school-age children in the United States live in poverty, putting them at risk for lifelong negative consequences, including inequities of education and opportunity. Art is a powerful, evidence-based tool to combat these inequities. Research also shows that providing the arts in school keeps kids in school—particularly at-risk youth. Low-income students with access to arts education are five times more likely to graduate from high school.

But the arts are largely unavailable to the students who need them the most. Slashed budgets, high-stakes testing, and other education reforms have led to cuts in arts programming. These cuts have disproportionally affected students attending Title I or high-poverty schools, who are more likely to be Black or Latinx--even as more affluent school districts continue to provide rich arts opportunities through private funding and higher taxes. The COVID-19 pandemic has only further strained the limited arts opportunities available to low-income students. ArtistYear exists to address this urgent need.

HISTORY

Believing in educational equity, the value of the arts, and the importance of service, Margo Drakos and Elizabeth Warshawer created ArtistYear in 2016. Launched as a pilot program as a shared delivery partner with the School District of Philadelphia, ArtistYear was certified as a 501c3 in its inaugural year and recognized as the first AmeriCorps national/state organization dedicated to service through the arts in summer 2017. In addition to its primary services in Philadelphia, ArtistYear now has satellite programs in The Borough of Queens, New York as well as in rural North Carolina and Colorado. Having vetted, trained and placed three (3) Fellows serving 429 students in 2016, Artist Year placed over 65 Fellows in school year 2020-2021 (210 Fellows since its founding) and is on target to teach well over 16,200 non-duplicated students, partnering with 61 schools, and providing upwards of 110,500 hours of virtual or in-person arts education.

ON-DEMAND ART LEARNING FEATURED on YOUTUBE KIDS

ArtistYear Fellows are creating on-demand arts learning and art making for kids everywhere that is featured on YouTube Kids. ArtistYear Create is designed to democratize access to engaging, inclusive arts learning/making sessions for kids by offering access across locations, cultures, and experiences.