Big Thought's Research and Supporting Literature

More than Measuring  
Purchase copies of the book via the Donate Now page ($15 postpaid).
More than Measuring is the final publication of the longitudinal study that assessed the impact of ArtsPartners. The evaluation, conducted over five years in cooperation with the Dallas Independent School District, the City of Dallas and over 50 cultural organizations, focuses on design principles used in conducting evaluations in ways that build the capacity of communities to design and improve programs for children and youth.

Enriching Minds. Growing Our Future. (PDF)
Dallas ArtsPartners was founded on the principle that all children have both minds and imaginations that need and deserve the best opportunities to learn right from the very start. Reviewing the findings of this study, it is clear that ArtsPartners has ignited, enriched and fueled student learning throughout the community.

Creating a New Education System (PDF)
Thriving Minds is an unprecedented partnership to unite Dallas’ arts, civic, educational and cultural resources to support K-12 education wherever students and their families learn.

Quality in Arts Education
At the heart of Thriving Minds is a double promise: first, that all young people will have access to arts education, and second, that the teaching and learning they encounter will be of the highest quality, enabling them to participate in, enjoy and support the creative activities of their homes and communities.

Supporting Literature from Conferences

The 4th Annual Williams Institute Conference
Dallas - October 2008
-  Investigating Creative Capital (PPT)

Conference on Southwest Foundations
Austin - October 2008
Co-presented with Global News Center for the Performing Arts and Windows on a Wider World (WOWW)
-  The Power of Collective Action (PDF)

National Performing Arts Conference
Denver - June 2008
-  Building a Creative Learning System (PDF) 
-  Engaging Parents and Families (PDF) 
-  Creative Learning Partnership and Collaboration - In School and Out of School Time (PDF)

Additional Research and Supporting Literature

Critical Perspectives: Engaging Parents as Learners and Advocates (PDF)
an Interview with Big Thought CEO Gigi Antoni
By Heather Stickeler, National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts
Involving parents as learners and advocates in community arts education can enhance student participation, cultivate greater demand for the arts, and increase community support for arts learning.

Banks Building Markets by Building Communities (PDF)
It's no secret that among the advanced industrial countries, American students are at or below average in literacy,  math and science.  Thus, the challenge for the US is to improve the quality of and access to education for all, and Thriving Minds (formerly known as DALI) embraces that challenge, helping prepare students to be part of the highly skilled creative workforce.

From Hip-Hop to Shakespeare
by Pam Mendels, The Wallace Foundation
Thriving Minds' nationally recognized work links artists, local government, cultural organizations, schools, parents, and others to bring arts education to Dallas' children both during and after school.  With the support of The Wallace Foundation, Thriving Minds has succeeded in more than doubling the number of arts teachers in Dallas public elementary schools, launched a summer arts program that reached 3,500 children last year, and made available a host of new neighborhood out-of-school time arts activities for kids, from hip-hop to Shakespearean drama.

City Schools: How Districts and Communities Can Create Smart Education Systems (PDF)
Edited by Robert Rothman
The core premise of this chapter is that building “smart” systems demands three ways of becoming “each other's business:” cross-sector collaboration, program evaluation and shared systems of opportunity.

A push to bring back arts in schools (PDF)
by Peter Dobrin
Art museums know it. So do orchestras. Little theater companies, too.

Nearly every arts organization can trace malaise and marginalization to a lack of arts education in schools. Several generations now have made it to adulthood never having been challenged to figure out what’s going on in Picasso’s Guernica, where the "Enigma" is in Elgar, whether the life path of George Gibbs and Emily Webb in Our Town is rote or meaningful...

Ford Foundation Report (PDF)
Dallas public schools are boosting student achievement by integrating arts into the curriculum for such core subjects as reading, math, science and social studies. Ever since Texas adopted a statewide curriculum in 1998, the nation’s 12th-largest school district has built a stronger teaching force, engaged students through new ways of learning and brought marked improvement in literacy, particularly writing.