As public schools across the nation discontinue art, music, theatre, and dance programs due to budgetary constrictions, a glimmer of hope is emerging in the field of community-based arts education thanks to The National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts.
The National Guild is a not-for-profit organization that provides service, advocacy and leadership to over 330 community-based, non-profit, non-degree-granting institutions in the United States.
Throughout its history, the National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts has championed the idea that “involvement in the arts is essential to individual fulfillment and community life.”
It’s website charter envisions “a nation where all Americans understand and appreciate the value of the arts in their lives, and in the lives of their communities.”
The Guild’s origins date back to the turn of the last century, when, in 1892, Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr created the first community school of the arts in the United States at Chicago’s Hull House. The aim of the venture was to assist underserved immigrant children. Students were taught “by a thoroughly qualified teacher for a sum which does not force both parent and child to cheat the body in order to nourish the mind.”
The idea spread to other settlements across the country and the schools formed the National Guild of Community Music Schools in 1937. Following its incorporation in New York in 1954, the national office of the Guild was established by Dr. Herbert Zipper with a series of grants from the Rockefeller Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 1974, the organization changed its name to The National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts to better reflect its multidisciplinary approach to community arts education.
Though it remains somewhat of an unknown entity, The National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts “is now accepted as the acknowledged leader of the field.” As such, it strives to ensure that quality arts education is both available and accessible “to every interested child and adult in the United States.” To this end, The National Guild has created an expansive and far-reaching national network that “encompasses arts education professionals, organizations, volunteers, and philanthropic supporters” that serve a diverse constituency of non-profit organizations providing arts education in urban, suburban and rural communities.
While the work of The National Guild includes prestigious institutions like the Interlochen Center for the Arts, locations benefitting from the Guild are as diverse as the Oldham County Arts Center in Crestwood, Kentucky, to the Henry Street Settlement, Abrons Art Center in New York, New York, from the Pampa Community Center for the Arts in Pampa, Texas, to the East Metro Music Academy in St. Paul, Minnesota.
The Guild has helped to create, advise and fund a number of initiatives at its member organizations throughout the country in the fields of dance, early childhood development, literary arts, media arts, music, theatre, and visual arts.
And while community arts education programs are offered in manners as diverse as the cities and towns in which they thrive, the schools associated with The National Guild share certain distinguishing attributes. All nonprofit, non-degree granting, community-based institutions, the schools must all offer open access to “quality arts instruction by [a] professional faculty.”
Past programs have included: Creative Communities, dedicated to expanding access to “serious, progressive instruction in the performing, literary and visual arts for children and youth living in public housing communities”; the MetLife Youth Music Project, which “made available free, private and group music instruction to middle school children from underserved communities in 10 cities”; and the National Endowment for the Arts/Youth Opportunity (YO!) program, designed to “introduce and enhance” the quality of arts activities taking place within selected Youth Opportunity (YO!) Community Centers funded by the U.S. Department of Labor.
Below is a list of a few of the current initiatives being conducted nationwide by The National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts.
Partners in Arts Education (formerly Partners in Excellence) is a national initiative which was developed to identify and study best practices in K-12 arts education partnerships and foster their replication. The program awards grants, distributes a handbook, and produces training institutes.
The goal of the Arts Management in Community Institutions (AMICI) Training Institute is to develop comprehensive leadership and management skills in individuals working in community arts education in order to increase organizational effectiveness.
The Guild Advisory Panel (GAP) is the latest membership benefit that offers free access to advice from experienced professionals in the field. Through half-hour phone sessions, advisors answer questions, offer advice and share experiences in a wide variety of areas.
