Arts in Progress

CONTACT:

2201 Washington St., Suite 100
Boston, MA 02119
617-427-9312

Robert Wooler, Executive Director

DESCRIPTION:

Arts in Progress (AIP) is a leading advocate for arts in the Boston Public Schools. In 1993 it received the first biennial Commonwealth Award for Excellence in Arts Education, from the Mass. Cultural Council and the Mass. Advocates for the Arts, Sciences and Humanities. In May 1997 a Boston Globe editorial attributed the "renaissance in arts education" to "Esther Kaplan. . .of. . .Arts in Progress" and the Boston School Committee, as the leaders "who have helped change arts education from a luxury to a curricular necessity."

AIP began in 1980, serving 10 Jamaica Plain youth. Today it serves over 8,000 students, 800 educators, and 100 elders, in every neighborhood of Boston. Its four program areas are: teacher training; artists-in-residencies, to help integrate arts into teaching across the curriculum; young artists' development: offerings of sequential training, performance opportunities, mentors, and vocational options for 225 highly talented Boston youth ages 9-19; and advocacy in arts policy and planning in all 125 Boston Public Schools and hundreds of community settings.

AIP is funded by school fees matched by govenment, foundation and corporate grants. It needs now to reach out to individual donors who want to support first-class arts education in Boston's Public Schools.

(1998: CULTURE: Education: Formal: School-Related)