The Arts and Music in Schools Act, the historic arts education mandate that greatly expanded the role of the arts in California classrooms, is receiving a boost in specialized educators to teach arts education in K-12 schools.Making it possible is the newly launched $11.5 million Arts Education Accelerator Fund, which will span five years. Led by nonprofits such as the Hewlett Foundation and California Community Foundation, the fund aims to address the shortage of qualified arts educators in California. That will include developing new arts teacher training, credentialing and apprenticeship programs for visual arts, theater, dance and other performing arts in California schools. “The benefit of the Arts and Music in Schools Act is that there [is] funding for a large number of new visual and performing arts credentialed and certificated staff. And because the jobs just hadn’t existed before, we know there wasn’t a pipeline for the workforce,” said Tom DeCaigny, co-chair of the fund’s advisory board and program officer at the Hewlett Foundation. “So, our strategy is to be supporting programs that are going to help bring the next generation of visual and performing arts educators into schools.” The Arts and Music in Schools Act, passed in 2022 with Proposition 28, sets aside roughly $1 billion a year for arts education programs in TK-12 public and charter schools. Nearly 90% of California schools failed to meet state requirements for arts education before the act, and more than 5,500 arts teachers are currently needed statewide, according to a 2025…
