Ingenuity State of the Arts Progress Report 2015-2016 | Page 8

introduction
In November 2012, the Chicago Board of
Education approved Chicago Public Schools’
(CPS) first Arts Education Plan1 (“the Plan”),
aimed at bringing ongoing arts instruction to
every student, in every grade, in every Chicago
public school. The Plan was considered
a significant step toward elevating and
prioritizing the arts in Chicago’s schools after
more than two decades of effort by cultural,
philanthropic, and education leaders. The
Creative Schools Initiative was subsequently
launched in the 2013-14 school year to move
the CPS Arts Education Plan into action across
all schools.
In July 2014, Ingenuity released the State of
the Arts in Chicago Public Schools: Baseline
Report 2012-20132 to set the benchmark
against which district-wide efforts to expand
arts instruction would be measured. The
Baseline Report examined the level of arts
instruction in CPS for the first year the Plan
was implemented.
This current report offers an analysis of
progress on the Plan and shows data related
to its implementation in schools. CPS has

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now operated under the Plan for four school
years, and this report is based on data from
all four of those years. For 2015-16, these
data are from 580 of the 660 schools (88
percent) in CPS, representing 92 percent of
the district’s students, as well as 579 arts
organizations and individuals that partnered
with CPS during the school year, and 20
major institutional arts education funders.
The data describe staffing, instructional time
and access, partnerships, and funding for the
arts in these schools; they are used in this
report to provide a clear understanding of the
arts environment and the arts needs in each
school and in the district as a whole, and to
track the success of the Plan.

88%
participation

Percentage of CPS participation in
2015-16, representing 580/660 schools