Submitted By Les Krifaton, Reporter – email
Improving student grades through the arts

LAS VEGAS (FOX5) –

It’s called Any Given Child. The program aims to provide a more balanced education through the arts.

“I am a firm believer as has been my husband of how important art is to the development of the whole human being” said Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn.

Las Vegas is only the fourth of seven cities selected for the program by the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts based in Washington, DC.

Clark County School District Superintendent Dwight Jones, couldn’t be happier that we are part of the initiative. He told a crowd at Gilbert Magnet Elementary School about the positive impact the arts had on students while he was Commissioner of Education in Colorado. “We found especially in math, especially African-American males that their math scores went through the roof as they learned to read music and play music” said Jones.

Today’s program presentation included a survey of nearly 37 hundred people working in the Clark County School District. Eighty percent expressed interest in the Any Given Child program. 83 percent believe adding the arts to the student curriculum is and should be a priority while 85 percent agree the arts provide a more balanced education.

The survey also found the primary barriers that inhibit arts education includes insufficient funding, lack of instructional time and little or no collaboration with local artists