From the University of Chicago/Obama Arts Team:

If you are a teaching artist in any discipline (visual arts, music, dance, theater, writing, etc) or manage teaching artists, register for the First National Teaching Artist Research Project at http://teachingartists.uchicago.edu/

The Obama campaign pledged to advance arts education and to create an Artists Corps, and that means the coming years will be important for teaching artists. What we learn through this study will help assure that new policies and practices create meaningful opportunities and real support for artists who do extraordinary work but who have rarely been recognized.  Whether you teach in a school or a community site (a church, a prison, a community art center, a youth or social service agency or a street corner), whatever your art form, whether you teach adults or childre n, we want to learn about your experience. The more artists we include in this research, the more inclusive, accurate, and helpful the study will be.

This study focuses on teaching artists who live or work in the metro areas of Boston, Providence, or Seattle, in Chicago, and in these California communities — the Bay Area (Alameda and San Francisco Counties), Los Angeles, San Diego, San Bernardino, Santa Cruz, Salinas, Bakersfield, and Humboldt County. So, if you’re a teaching artist, or if you run a program that hires teaching artists, and live or work in one of our study site areas, please use the above link to sign up!

Even if you are not a teaching artist, everyone can help us by forwarding this email to all of your contacts who are. Please feel free to contact NICK RABKIN if you have any questions or ideas of ways that we can reach out to more teaching artists.  All those who complete the survey will be given a free CD of two amazing stories about teaching artists from Ira Glass’ radio program ‘This American Life’.

About Nick Rabkin:  Nick was a member of the Obama campaign’s National Arts Policy Committee.  He wrote a terrific book on arts education, “Putting the Arts in the Picture: Reframing Education in the 21st Century”.  Now he’s now overseeing the first national study of teaching artists and he needs your help.