Systemic Arts Integration for Learning (SAIL) is a project of the Antioch University New England’s Center for School Renewal (ACSR), in collaboration with more than a dozen nonprofit arts organizations, universities, schools, and school districts throughout our state. SAIL began in conversations during 2002 within New Hampshire’s arts and education community. The three New Hampshire-based arts integration programs listed above have received national recognition and sustained funding because of their innovation and success. As those programs flourished, the publication of the report Critical Links added data to our objective as well as anecdotal evidence that when school curricula are integrated through the arts, students gain not only academically, but also improve their self-concepts and self-confidence. Like many other educators, SAIL’s partners were concerned that the arts can be marginalized in schools focused increasingly on quickly raising their scores in standardized tests of reading and mathematics. In such cases, the value of the arts as an integrative tool can go unrecognized.

With a grant from the Council of Chief State School Officers, the New Hampshire State department of Education and a team of arts education experts organized and conducted a year-long series of conversations throughout the state. The purpose of the discussions was to determine how the arts and arts integration could be used to help schools address issues of accountability and the increasing pressures that schools face under the requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind law. Participants in the discussions agreed to work together in a statewide partnership for arts education and integration—SAIL.

In their early work together, SAIL’s partners established an executive team and working procedures; hired a project director; developed liaisons and partnerships with a range of constituent groups throughout New Hampshire; designed and implemented a fund-raising campaign; established relationships with existing national model arts and integration programs; published a research report investigating best practices in arts integration, and recruited schools to participate in SAIL’s programs.

Because the arts express the soul of the human spirit, education that incorporates the arts in learning is education that speaks to the individual; the student, the teacher, the parent, the community. Arts in education is good education.

Arts Integration: A Means to an End

Arts integration is rising to the demands of a research-based model for school improvement and as a means to creating successful schools. Through concerted effort, we can more safely make judgments about the real effects that arts have on learning. In addition, we can build on the meaningful work of arts integration specialists who conscientiously develop curriculum and instruction on learning theories, brain-based research, and quality instructional practices that are driven by the power and the passion of the arts. Because the arts express the soul of the human spirit, education that incorporates the arts in learning is education that speaks to the individual; the student, the teacher, the parent, the community. Arts in education is good education.

Last Updated: 11/10/08