This 1999 report compiles seven major studies that provide new evidence of enhanced learning and achievement when students are involved in a variety of arts experiences. Champions of change was developed with the support of the GE Fund, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Arts Education Partnership, and the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities.

Gaining the Arts Advantage: Lessons From School Districts That Value Arts Education
The first national study to examine the generation and sustenance of strong arts education throughout entire school districts, this study:

• discusses the interrelating factors — educational, social, and economic — that enhance arts education;
• provides valuable lessons from the field — from superintendents, school board members, principals, district arts coordinators, arts teachers, students, parents, and other community members — including strategies for overcoming obstacles to districtwide arts education;
• examines in depth eight school systems that were observed on site by experienced teams that included school district superintendents as well as arts educators; and
• presents the creative solutions of 83 additional school districts participating in this study, selected from more than 500 districts recommended.

Transforming Education Through the Arts Challenge (TETAC)
TETAC was a project of the National Arts Education Consortium, formed by six regional arts education institutes in California, Florida, Nebraska, Ohio, Tennessee, and Texas in 1996. Thirty-five partner schools in eight states engaged in a five-year project to place arts education at the core of the curriculum and assess resulting student achievement. TETAC consortium members explored, assessed, and documented ways in which intensive Professional Development, comprehensive arts education, and systemic school reform could transform schools and their extended communities.

TETAC was funded by the Walter H. Annenberg Foundation and the Getty Education Institute for the Arts. The project was completed in June 2001.