Ingenuity State of the Arts Report 2016-17 Ingenuity_SOTA_2016-17 | Page 3

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY
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The 2016–17 State of the Arts in Chicago Public Schools (CPS)
Progress Report highlights the progress CPS and Chicago’s arts
education community are making toward fulfilling the goal—
and the promise to CPS students—articulated in the 2012 CPS
Arts Education Plan: that the arts should be brought to every
child, in every grade, in every school.
This year, as in each year since the Arts Education Plan was released,
the progress report identifies some important gains. Foremost among
these is that a higher percentage of CPS schools than ever before,
serving a higher share of CPS students than ever before, are meeting
the criteria to be rated as Strong or Excelling in the arts.
This achievement is particularly encouraging considering the financial
challenges the district has faced in recent years. Despite a frequently
uncertain and challenging financial climate, and with additional arts gains
clearly needed, data reflect that both the district and principals have
continued to prioritize arts education in their schools. This report examines
these and other positive trends in detail, while also noting areas in which
more progress needs to be made.
The report is designed to provide a snapshot of the access CPS students
had to arts instruction in the 2016–17 school year. The findings are based on
data collected from CPS, the 631 CPS schools that completed the Creative
Schools Survey, the 521 community partners that actively supported the arts
education opportunities in those CPS schools, 14 Chicago-based foundations
and corporations, and Ingenuity’s Creative Schools Fund.
In the same way that each CPS student’s arts education is made possible
through the collective efforts of a wide range of arts education supporters
across the City of Chicago, this report was made possible through the
collective effort of hundreds of people in and outside of the arts education
community who provided the data that are at the center of the report.
While data points alone cannot capture the rich, dynamic, and ever-
changing arts education environment in CPS schools, the strength of the
information presented here is in its sources: the instructors, agencies and
leaders who are in the schools and in the community, working to bring the
arts to CPS students every day.
PROGRESS REPORT | 2016–17