Curriculum frameworks are the foundational architecture for teaching and learning in K-12 education. Without frameworks, schools struggle to set learning standards and effective ways to track student growth and achievement. Subjects lacking strong frameworks are often marginalized or ignored.
The National Endowment for the Arts remains a vital and stable source of support for the cultural ecosystem here in Massachusetts despite the partisan battles in Washington, D.C.
Creativity is in full bloom at three Springfield Housing Authority developments. Children at Duggan, Moxon, and Riverview Apartments are critically assessing and discussing a variety of art works, both classic and modern. And then, they are creating their own art inspired by their new way of seeing and reflecting on how artists create.
Check out recent episodes of Creative Minds Out Loud, Mass Cultural Council's podcast, featuring:
- Diane Paulus and Diane Borger of the American Repertory Theater
- Alex Oliver-Dávila of Sociedad Latina
- Margaret Keller of Community Access to the Arts (CATA)
The Foster Families Pilot Program is a one-year pilot that connects Western Massachusetts Department of Children and Families offices and social workers with a contact person at participating cultural organizations in their region.
Mass Cultural Council is much more than a grant maker. We provide the services, consultation, and support that assure that every tax dollar we invest in the cultural landscape of Massachusetts delivers meaningful impact for our residents. Our services are only possible because of the hours staff spend supporting constituents. Since July 1, 2018 Mass Cultural Council staff have...
Check out recent episodes of Creative Minds Out Loud, Mass Cultural Council's podcast, featuring:
- Eileen McCaffery of Community Music School of Springfield and Julie Jaron of Springfield Public Schools
- Lee Blake of the New Bedford Historical Society
- Neil Gordon of Discovery Museum
Check out recent episodes of Creative Minds Out Loud, Mass Cultural Council's podcast, featuring:
- Evelyn Francis of the Theater Offensive
- Matthias Waschek of the Worcester Art Museum
- Reverend Steve Ayres of the Old North Church
From September 2016 to August 2018, Mass Cultural Council and The Klarman Family Foundation piloted a two-year program focused on music educators and teaching artists from across Massachusetts.
This year, Mass Cultural Council will invest nearly $1 million across 243 schools statewide with grants that support creative learning through the arts, humanities, and sciences, for students of all ages.
Mass Cultural Council is proud to award 15 new Amplify grants for 2019 totaling $15,000. Directed to projects designed and executed by young people in programs receiving YouthReach or SerHacer funding, Amplify furthers the Commonwealth’s investment in youth leadership and empowerment.
This fall Hamilton, the musical and cultural phenomenon, drew standing-room-only crowds from adults and children of all ages during its run at the Boston Opera House. Along with the show came the Hamilton Education Program — a partnership between The Gilder Lehrman Institute, the producers of Hamilton, and the Lin-Manuel Miranda family — in which students from high schools with high percentages of low-income families are invited to see the show and integrate Alexander Hamilton and the founding era into their classroom studies.
We’ve seen how creative expression lifts young people beyond poverty, disability, and other societal barriers here in Massachusetts and across the nation. Today the movement for creative youth transcends national borders. Earlier this month, our neighbors to the south shared some of their insights on the transformative power of the arts in the lives young people at a Harvard University panel discussion.
Dr. Love is an award-winning author and Associate Professor of Educational Theory & Practice at the University of Georgia. She is one of the field’s most esteemed educational researchers in the ways in which urban youth negotiate culture to form social, cultural, and political identities to create new and sustaining ways of thinking about urban education and intersectional social justice.
Check out recent episodes of Creative Minds Out Loud, Mass Cultural Council's podcast, featuring:
- Jay Calderin of Boston Fashion Week
- Christina Turner and Sarah Rose of New Bedford Whaling Museum
- Benjamin Forman of the Gateway Cities Innovation Institute at MassINC
Check out upcoming grant opportunities for schools and educators.
On a recent August day, students gathered around a piano on a stage at Lawrence High School. They were rehearsing the forthcoming production of “West Side Story,” written by a composer born just a few blocks away almost exactly a century ago.
