Program Areas | K-12 Education

DreamYard—Bronx Arts Learning Community: Research Study of the Initiative's Impact

DreamYard collaborates with a community of 15 Bronx schools to ensure high-quality arts education for each child.

DreamYard, an arts-in-education organization that serves schools in the Bronx, launched the Bronx Arts Learning Community (BALC) in September 2007. BALC is composed of 15 schools that are seeking to provide sequential, innovative arts education for every student in grades K-12. On a larger level, the initiative is helping the schools form a network to improve their arts programming collectively. The learning community partnered with Metis Associates and with the Ford Foundation, which provided generous funding, to research the impact of the initiative and to build the research and evaluation capacity within the participating schools.

Metis worked collaboratively with DreamYard and school staff to design the program evaluation and identify tools to measure the impact of comprehensive arts programming on school culture, teacher practice, and student success. It is the aim of the initiative to embed these evaluation processes and tools in the schools to ensure the sustainability of gains that are made. BALC is using the results of this collective ongoing research to document best practices of the initiative and to catalyze an institute that can showcase its model of school reform for other schools to replicate.