ArtsEd TN
TAEA has entered into a coalition with other Tennessee arts organizations to help keep an eye on our Tennessee legislature and their bills that effect arts education in the K-12 classroom. This newly founded organization is called ArtsEd TN. While TAEA President, I was at the first meeting on this new group and now I am on the Legislature Committee for ArtsEd TN. I will be keeping TAEA members and all arts educators in the loop of all findings of this group. Right now the focus is K-12 arts classrooms, in the future we may add to this overview.
Your TAEA board debated this decision to join this coalition. Through our investigation we have decided it is important for us to participate with this group. All the arts groups are represented and we want to be there with them. The CMA, music vendors, and other stakeholders are getting involved to help fund the firm we use to get us the reports. As visual art educators, we are looking for our visual art vendors to help us with this worthy cause.
Stephen Coleman, from the Tennessee Arts Academy Foundation, is the Chair of this coalition. He comes from a music educator background, but is dedicated to supporting all arts education in Tennessee. With his leadership, we have all the arts organizations pulling together for the good of the students in Tennessee.
With the new ESSA law, music and arts education are part of the well-rounded education and some Title money can be used to support arts education. Hopefully, Tennessee legislators will see this as the foundation for new legislation in the future. Ensuring arts education for all Tennessee students. We are encouraged by banding together with our arts brothers and sisters to keep an eye on the Tennessee legislature’s activities that will effect arts education in our classrooms.
By participating in this coalition, TAEA receives regular reports on the activities in the legislature during their session. I will put those updates on the TAEA website to let you see how your elected officials are supporting legislation that supports Arts Education. Please let me know at nunnallyj@pcsstn.com if you have any questions about ArtsEd TN or Tennessee arts education issues.
Janis Stivers Nunnally
TAEA Past President/State Conference Chair
ArtsEd TN Legislature Committee