A Study on the New Victory SPARK Program Shows the Benefits of Investing in Arts Education For All Schools

The Impact Research on the SPARK program was created by New Victory Theater and WolfBrown highlighting the impact performing arts education has in arts-deprived school communities. New Victory Theater and WolfBrown joined together to design the research protocol in 2013, the program was piloted in 2014 and officially launched in 2015 with the first round of full research. The research protocol measured the impacts of the arts on young people.

Read the full research report here.

The program research was divided into many parts, but the four main parts being...

-Children's appreciation for artistry

-The impulse to try new things

-The capacity for self-reflection

-An appreciation of someone's life that is different from their own

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Lindsey Buller Maliekel, Vice President, Education and Public Engagement, partnered with Dennie Palmer Wolf, Steven Holochwost and Alan Brown to develop the research. The program was overseen by Courtney J. Boddie, Vice President, Education and School Engagement. Using the school's existing engagement programs, a team of highly trained teaching artists, live performances by international arts companies, and smartly-designed classroom curricula; New Victory SPARK school students engaged in 45 performing arts workshops and saw 9 live performances in a 3-year period. All of which increased their creative skills in circus, puppetry, theater, dance, and more.

Data was collected by New Victory Theater from schools with no arts teachers or arts programming and maintained a control group from the same student body. To ensure every student had access throughout the partnership, the New Victory SPARK program worked sequentially with 3rd or 6th grade. Assuring that when the program ended, all three grades in middle school (6-8) and the top three grades in elementary (3-5) school had participated.

SPARK school communities went from zero arts involvement to students seeing three shows a year, participating in 15 show-inspired workshops a year, families joining their SPARK students in seeing shows at theaters, and teachers participating in arts-based professional development. The SPARK program successfully managed to get students from schools that lacked arts involvement to be fully engaged in the arts.

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Conclusions?

Through this study, it was determined that kids' access to and engagement with the performing arts...

-Cultivates an enduring love of the performing arts

-Expands perspectives and interpersonal skills that strengthen teamwork

-Inspires creative thinking, which encourages innovation and problem-solving

-Nurtures hope and improves self-confidence, which fosters optimism and resilience

When comparing the SPARK participants versus the control group, it showed...

-20% greater interest in performing arts among SPARK participants versus control group after two years

-55% larger student-selected teams among SPARK participants versus control group after two years

-50% increase in improvisation skills linked to creative thinking among SPARK participants and a 300%+ increase in average improvisation length among SPARK participants after three years

-10% increase in hope for the future after one year among SPARK participants

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What are the implications?

-Ensure more vibrant and diverse performing arts by encouraging engagement from the earliest years on

-Prioritize the integration of performing arts in schools to restore connection and community

-Invest in performing arts engagement to cultivate the next generation of creators and problem-solvers

-Promote arts education as an essential need of every young person, so they can dream without limits

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New Victory SPARK has been in 9 schools total. Due to the success rate of the program, most New Victory SPARK schools are now New Victory SPARK School Partners. For more information, please click here.