The purpose of the 2011–12 Arts Curricular Innovation Grants (ACIG) Program is to assist schools and districts to develop and implement large or small-scale arts initiatives that support quality arts education programs that significantly improve student achievement in the arts.  ACIG must promote the development and implementation of appropriate curricula, instruction, and assessment based on the 2010 South Carolina Academic Standards for the Visual and Performing Arts. They must also serve as the foundation to support quality arts instruction and the growth of such programs in South Carolina schools.  Successful proposals include dance, music, theatre, and the visual arts. 

During the 2011-12, grant cycle 65 grants were funded. During the 2010-11, grant cycle 90 applications were funded affecting 199 schools throughout South Carolina with the $1.18 million allocated from the South Carolina Legislature. During the past two grant cycles from 2009-11, over 200,000 students in South Carolina have benefited from the ACIG as reported in the grant applications. 

The Arts Curricular Innovation Grants provide schools and districts with the funding for arts strategic planning, effective implementation of the state arts standards, standards-driven assessment, the use of instructional best practice strategies, and arts-specific professional development. 

Ten years of ongoing research in South Carolina schools has demonstrated increased and enhanced arts education programs have significant impact on students, schools, and teachers. Research conducted by the University of South Carolina Office of Program Evaluation found that schools with quality, comprehensive, and sequential arts programs greatly changed the ecology of the school. Research at these schools concludes:

• higher student attendance,
• fewer discipline referrals,
• higher parent approval,
• fewer student interruptions and more time on task,
• higher teacher attendance, and
• higher teacher morale.

Arts Curricular Innovation Grants also provide quality professional development for arts teachers and classroom teachers.

• Teachers and administrators from every district in the state have attended summer professional development arts institutes through the Arts Curricular Innovation Grants.
• Over 250 teachers and administrators attend at least twelve institutes each year.
• The South Carolina Arts Leadership for Success Academy (SCALSA) and the Arts Assessment: Student Evaluation Institute have been approved by the Program of Alternative Certification for Educators (PACE) as two of the three required courses for PACE arts teachers.
• New teachers attending SCALSA have a very high retention rate. Out of 272 teachers attending SCALSA only 11 have left the teaching profession.
• Research from the Office of Program Evaluation at USC supports the quality of the arts institutes funded through the Arts Curricular Innovation Grants. Observers in a five year longitudinal study reported:
• the quality of standards-based arts lessons had greatly improved after attending the Curriculum Leadership Institute in the Arts (CLIA) and
• after teachers attended the Arts Assessment: Student Evaluation Institute there was noticeable improvement in teachers assessment of students’ knowledge of the South Carolina Academic Standards for the Visual and Performing. 

Applicants must use grant funds to achieve all of the bulleted items below:

• Plan, develop, and implement arts education curricula, instruction, and assessment based on the 2010 South Carolina Academic Standards for the Visual and Performing Arts.
• Develop lesson plans and curriculum guides based on the 2010 South Carolina Academic Standards for the Visual and Performing Arts and purchase resources required to implement these lessons.
• Provide for teacher professional development programs for arts specialists or appropriate classroom teachers.
• A minimum of 30% of the total budget must be used for scholarships for SCDE-approved 2011 arts summer professional development institutes. These include institutes on curriculum, leadership, assessment, technology, creating in the arts, artistically gifted and talented, media production in the arts, and arts integration.
• Hire certified arts specialists or contract with professional artists approved by the South Carolina Arts Commission (SCAC).
• Administer the South Carolina Arts Assessment Program (SCAAP) as a major part of an ongoing needs assessment and evaluation.  The objective of SCAAP is to allow educators and school districts to assess students’ arts achievement based on the 2010 South Carolina Academic Standards for the Visual and Performing Arts. 
• Nearly 8,500 fourth grade music and visual arts students participated in SCAAP in 2011.
• The test gives teachers feedback on the implementation of standards-based arts education.

The grant includes innovative practices. Applicants must include and detail innovative practices to

• Enhance, accelerate, and assure student achievement in the arts,
• Implement the 2010 South Carolina Academic Standards for the Visual and Performing Arts,
• Embed innovative practices in the grant’s strategies and action steps, and
• Include strategies to more effectively engage students in their arts study.

The EIA-Arts Curricula funds in the SCDE budget have been crucial to the progress of arts education in South Carolina since the passage of Target 2000 legislation in 1989.  This funding supports the improvement of arts curricula and instruction through competitive grants to schools and districts. The grants impact is statewide as well as local, due to the fact that these grant funds support statewide professional development for arts teachers that has dramatically improved arts instruction and integration with other subjects including STEM. Arts Curricular innovation Grants also support a standardized arts assessment program that is an important tool for local and statewide arts program improvement.

• You can expect to meet up with arts supporters like yourself from all over the state – arts administrators, board members, volunteers, educators, students, artists and parents.
• Advocates will gather in the Statehouse first floor lobby area by 11:30 AM (enter from the Sumter Street side) to greet legislators as they arrive for the noon session. You will need to pass through security at that entrance. Depending on the weather and the size of the crowd, you may see a group gathered in front of the Statehouse on Main Street or outside the entrance on the Sumter side.
• Arts Advocates will be easy to spot. The Arts Alliance will provide our lightweight plastic white “hard hats” and our signature advocacy button – “ART WORKS IN SOUTH CAROLINA” with Mona Lisa also wearing her hard hat. (If you still have your hat and button from last year – please wear them as they are now limited in number!)
• You are also encouraged to bring your own signage but please be respectful and civil – “no bashing”.
• As legislators and staff arrive – entering from the basement’s parking garage into the Statehouse for the day’s session — advocates will form a “gauntlet” and greet them by passing out our advocacy buttons and hats asking for their support to continue funding of the arts and arts education. We also plan to distribute business-size cards that state our message.
• If you see your legislator, remind him or her of the day’s Legislative Appreciation Luncheon and if you will be in attendance. Plan to take a photo of you and your Legislator with your camera phone and add it to your Facebook page or our’s at: www.facebook.com/scartsalliance.
  Some advocates will have already met with their legislators earlier in the morning (by making an appointment in advance or just stopping by their office for a brief visit and leaving information). You might like to do the same.
• If you missed seeing your legislator, there will be “call out” forms you can fill out and have delivered to your legislator to let them know you are in the lobby or gallery. You can also use the forms at the desks in front of each chamber.
• You can expect that both the first floor and the second floor lobby areas will be congested with many other citizens and groups advocating for their own issues, along with legislators and lobbyists. That’s a good thing! Mix and mingle.
• Once legislators arrive and move to the House or Senate chambers for the day’s opening session, you may want to view floor activities from their respective galleries on the second floor. It’s a real education!
• The galleries are small in capacity, especially the Senate gallery. You will be ushered in as seats become available. Because the chamber galleries are popular and always crowded, seating may be limited. You are encouraged not to linger too long in the galleries in order for others to be seated. You may be asked to remove your “hard hat”, but be sure to put it back on in the lobby area.
• South Carolina’s Arts Advocacy Day will be announced from the “floor” of each chamber, and Arts Advocates should stand and be recognized.
• If you have a reservation for the Legislative Appreciation Luncheon, you will want to leave the Statehouse no later than 12:45 PM in order to arrive and check in on time. The Luncheon takes place across the street from the Statehouse at the Capital City Club, 25th floor of the Capital Center Building at 1201 Main Street, 1:00 – 2:30 PM. There is a parking garage in the building.
• You must register for the luncheon in advance and the cost is $35. However, please consider being an UNDERWRITER of the event, and take advantage of the “Special Advocate’s Deal” — $60 will cover a legislator’s lunch and your own! You can underwrite additional legislator lunches at $30 each.
• Even though all legislators will have received an invitation to the Legislative Appreciation Luncheon from the Arts Alliance and the event is on their official House and Senate calendars, contact your legislator to remind them of the Luncheon and that you will be in attendance. Legislators will arrive at the Luncheon following “adjournment”.
• If you can’t stay for the Luncheon, but still want to help make an impression on our policymakers, just join us at the Statehouse first floor lobby area at 11:30 AM. You will help to increase our numbers – putting a face on the arts – as the legislators arrive, and you’ll be back to work or class in no time!