The Mission
of ESP
Empire State
Partnerships (ESP) is dedicated to identifying, supporting
and developing promising practices in collaborations
between cultural organizations and schools.
The focus of the project is on the achievement
of the New York State Learning Standards and contributing
to the improvement of teaching and learning in New York
Schools.
The History
of ESP
The
project was launched in 1996 as a joint initiative
of the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA)
and the New York State Education Department (NYSED).
These agencies united with the goal of raising
standards for students and integrating and reinstating
the arts into classrooms throughout New York State. ESP is a program of the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) and is fiscally supported by the Metropolitan Opera Guild.
Three
Major Components of ESP:
Empire
State Partnerships Grants: Since
the program’s inception, NYSCA has allocated
more than $18 million in granted funds to build and
support long-term, in-depth arts education partnerships
across the state. The grants are given to projects
which pair cultural organizations with schools across
New York State. As of July 2007, 164 partnerships have
received funding in planning grants of approximately
$10,000, and grants for program implementation of
up to $100,000.
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These grants have involved over 104 cultural organizations and eight colleges
or universities with students, teachers and administrators
in 58 school districts across New York State.
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The cultural organizations in partnerships have included art museums, theaters,
dance companies, history museums, music companies,
nature centers, community organizations, and writing
and literacy programs, among others.
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The schools and school districts in partnerships represent elementary, middle
school and high schools from across New York State.
-
These partnerships have directly involved over 34,000 students and over
1,400 teachers.
The ESP grants have indirectly served many
times these numbers.
ESP
Office of Partnership Support and Research: For ten years, the ESP Office of Partnership Support and Research (OPSR) - recently renamed from the Professional Development Program - has offered a year-round
schedule of activities in an effort to support arts-in-education in New York by building capacity
at the assorted ESP sites. ESPs Office of Partnership Support and Research
is often described as one of the most ambitious and
effective professional development programs in the
nation. The
program can be broken into the following critical
initiatives:
Summer
Seminar
An intensive, weeklong retreat held annually
for a wide range of participants, including school-based
practitioners and administrators, teaching artists
and cultural administrators.
The retreat provides dedicated planning time,
access to ESP faculty made up of nationally renowned
Arts and Education consultants, intensive study of
performance assessment, Reflective Practice techniques,
integrated curriculum strategies and partnership strengthening
techniques. The seminar is open to non-ESP arts-in-education practitioners and annually attracts participants from across the nation.
Regional
Learning and Leadership Networks
Schools and cultural organizations around New
York State and across the nation have begun to look
to ESP teams for models of successful partnership
and practice.
By developing our teams capacity as professional
developers on a regional level, we will strengthen
individual teams cases for sustained funding
and raise the standard for collaborative work around
the state and country. This initiative includes regional meetings and regionally developed professional development offerings.
ESP
Website:
The ESP website serves three primary purposes:
- To inform ESP-funded partnerships about OPSR programs and to provide a central location for disseminating crucial logistical information about OPSR;
- To build capacity for online discussion and communication, creating a community of New York State arts-in-education voices; and
- To share the accomplishments and models created by ESP-funded partnerships and by the OPSR itself, with the national and international arts, education and arts-in-education communities.
This website, managed by the Office of Partnership Support and Research, disseminates information about
the ESP-funded Whole School partnerships and related
initiatives. The content of the website has been developed
by ESP faculty and staff, and the site design is the
creation of Abe
Francis-Fallon of Clientside
Design and Consulting. The project was originally
initiated in collaboration with NYSED, ArtsWire, BBN
Technologies and the Northeast Regional Educational
Lab at Brown University.