Program
Scholarship Prep believes the importance of diversifying one’s knowledge and experiences includes the incorporation of visual and performing arts.
The arts electives program at Scholarship Prep utilizes highly skilled and trained instructors to work with and teach students during the school day as an electives-based course. This means, starting in transitional kindergarten (TK) through eighth grade, students are able to select the specific arts courses for their school day. The TK-8 electives pathway is designed to ensure that our students are exposed to a variety of arts offerings by the time they enter high school. This preparation will allow our students to be ready to participate in high school arts programs as a result of their heavy focus in grades TK-8.
Instruction is organized to target the strands of artistic perception, creative expression, historical and cultural context, aesthetic valuing and connections, relationships, and applications. In addition, literacy skills are woven into these “elective” classes.
Our current course offerings include Studio Art, Music/Choir, and dance.
Research
The positive impact of the arts on learning has been widely documented in academic research examining a variety of arts education programs. In the late 1990s, James Catterall, now a UCLA professor, and colleagues analyzed data from the National Educational Longitudinal Survey (NELS:88), a study of some 25,000 secondary school students over four years, and found significant connections between high involvement in arts learning and general academic success. In 2009 Catterall analyzed ten additional years of data related to the same cohort of students, now age 26.
In the study, Catterall found that significant advantages exist for arts-engaged low-socioeconomic students in college-going, college grades, and types of employment, e.g. jobs with a future—and strong advantages in volunteerism and political participation.
Additionally, low-income students and English Learners do better in arts-rich vs. arts-poor schools.
