INNER-CITY ARTS

Inner-City Arts creates a climate that fosters growth and creativity in children and youth, and one that taps the full potential of the artists and classroom teachers who work with them. We hope to strengthen and develop the potential in each participant at Inner-City Arts illustrated by the following outcomes:

• Students improve academically, socially and cognitively, as demonstrated by increases in arts performance assessment; and

• Students improve academically, socially and cognitively, as demonstrated by increases in English-language development levels; and

• Teachers gain ability to facilitate creative experiences and exploration of arts content, which are aligned with arts standards; and

• Teachers gain skills to facilitate the development of reflective and expressive practices that relate to the demands of the Common Core State Standards; and

• Parents, administrators and others in school communities increase participation in arts-learning.

Inner-City Arts programming fosters fundamental improvements in instructional practice and will help students and teachers gain new resources for learning and teaching, respectively. Students engage more deeply in the arts and experience greater overall academic achievement through the following activities:

• High quality, standards-aligned instruction in the arts that cultivates 21st century skills such as critical thinking, exploration, experimentation, problem solving, communication, collaboration, creativity and innovation— hallmarks of the Common Core State Standards; and

• Sequential, year-round, out-of-school study for students that encourages them to deeply explore a chosen art form, achieve artistic growth, experience team-building and a sense of community, and create advanced portfolios or bodies of work - all of which improve the likelihood of high school graduation; and

• Arts-infused classrooms and school communities where teachers address the full spectrum of student learning needs across all academic disciplines; and

• Opportunities for family, school and community members to experience art presentations, programs and performances on the Inner-City Arts campus.

Inner-City Arts' mission is built on the vision of our Co-founder, Bob Bates, to create an “arts space for kids" where students could learn, grow and be creative. Teaching art to youth living on Skid Row, and witnessing its positive impact, led Bob to establish Inner-City Arts in 1989 with 60 elementary school students. Since then more than 200,000 elementary, middle and high school students have traveled to our award-winning campus for free arts instruction.

From the beginning, Inner-City Arts has responded to the educational needs of children living in high-poverty downtown Los Angeles neighborhoods, the shifting priorities and availability of arts education resources, and the lack of opportunities for students to develop 21st-century skills, including creative thinking, motivation to learn and social problem-solving ability. This has resulted in the expansion of our programs from exclusively offering direct arts instruction to students, to the in-depth visual and performing arts programs that serve 8,000 students, teachers, school community and family members each year.

In 2015, Inner-City Arts announced the results of an evaluation of one of our program areas, funded by the U.S. Department of Education. Over the course of the four-years of research, we found consistent and significant gains in English language arts when compared to matched comparison school sites—a 15% average increase among English language learners, and a 10% average increase among the whole school population, as well as a 6.5% average gain in mathematics and 33% increase in creativity.