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Asia Pacific Cultural Center supports Tacoma Creates Proposition 1

November 3, 2018 By The Suburban Times

Submitted by Asia Pacific Cultural Center.

Tacoma Creates will support the success of our students and create engaged citizens. A win-win for our community.

YES! I support Tacoma Creates

Need a compelling reason to support Tacoma Creates? How about the success of students from your own neighborhood?

Research shows that students engaged in arts learning have higher GPAs, higher standardized test scores, and lower drop-out rates-regardless of their socio-economic status. Our youth need opportunities to boost their success in school and life. Prop 1: Tacoma Creates will provide those opportunities, right now, to our current students. Support Prop 1 this November. Let’s not wait until they’ve graduated.

“I believe that the only outcomes we should need to measure for a music class is whether the child had the chance to create, enjoy, and understand music. But as the arts are forced to compete for scarce resources, there is no harm in pointing out once again that an investment in the arts will pay extensive dividends. Art works. Let’s make sure it works for our country’s students.”

– Rocco Landesman, Chairman, National Endowment for the Arts

How do we know art works for students?

Researcher James Catterall is known internationally for his studies on the cognitive impact of music and the arts on education. His studies showed a strong correlation between high engagement with arts programing and academic outcomes. Across math, science, and writing, as well as overall grade point average, students of low-socioeconomic status that were highly engaged in arts programming far exceeded their peers of low arts/low-socioeconomic experiences.

Some of the most promising data reported on by Catterall found that 71% of high arts/low-socioeconomic students attended college. Their peers with low-arts engagement? Only 48% college attendance.

Tacoma Creates legislation specifically calls out scaling cultural arts opportunities to ensure increased participation of students lower on the economic scale. In Tacoma, that’s nearly 60% of Tacoma Public Schools’ 29,000 students. Furthermore, the US Department of Education reports that access to arts education for students of color is significantly lower than for their white peers. In Tacoma, nearly 60% of public school students are students of color. To help address these populations, Tacoma Creates provides practical solutions, like transportation for school age children to cultural facilities, programs and events. Because this simple issue has been one of the recognized barriers for access.

Can youth arts participation impact our economy?

The improved outcomes in school performance may also affect our labor market. When compared to their peers, twice as many high arts/low low-socioeconomic populations enrolled in professional majors, such as accounting, finance, and management. Think how that could impact our city.

Students with high arts involvement, regardless of socioeconomic status, are more involved in extracurricular activities and volunteer in their communities at much higher rates than their peers. Youth in the LENS program (Learn Empathy Negotiation & Self), provided at area schools by the Broadway Center for the Performing Arts, develop personal social skills and empathy for others. Community arts programs like LENS improve both interracial and intergenerational communication and build a stronger sense of community. This is further proof that cultural arts help people learn and prosper.

Play to Learn at the Children’s Museum of Tacoma

Research shows that early education programs for children under five years old improves future school success and reduces overall social costs. That’s why the Children’s Museum of Tacoma offers parents- and all those who nurture young children-access to enriching, play-based learning programs. Because a parent is a child’s first and most important teacher.

The museum’s Play to Learn program is designed for parents and for grandparents, neighbors, family, and friends who nurture children. The thematic curriculum-from apples to animals to weather-provides individual play time, group activities, and singing opportunities for children and adults to enjoy together. The free, drop-in program is offered at 22 community locations throughout Pierce County. The museum hopes to expand that reach so families have a program within 20 minutes of their home. Tacoma Creates could help make this possible.

Check out Play to Learn program times and locations near you.

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