Turnaround Arts program launches in Hawaii

A national program that helps turn around low-performing public schools through arts education launched in Hawaii Wednesday with the help of local musician Jack Johnson and ukulele virtuoso Jake Shimabukuro.

The artists will each adopt a school, joined by actress Alfre Woodard, as part of the Turnaround Arts program, a White House initiative led by the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities.

The program, launched as a pilot in 2012, helps schools hire arts and music teachers, purchase art supplies and musical instruments, and train educators to integrate art with core subjects such as reading, math and science.

The initiative was expanded last year after an outside evaluation found academic achievement had improved at Turnaround Arts schools. The study found, on average, that participating schools showed a 23 percent improvement in math proficiency and a 13 percent increase in reading proficiency over three years. Attendance also improved, while student disciplinary problems decreased.

Three Oahu public schools — Kalihi Kai Elementary, Kamaile Academy Public Charter School and Waianae Elementary — will receive funding and resources for three years under the program.

Schools are selected by the U.S. Department of Education to receive extra resources because they are in the bottom 5 percent of schools in their state for academic achievement. Nationally, the program is in 49 schools in 14 states and the District of Columbia, reaching more than 22,000 high-needs students.

Shimabukuro, a Kaimuki High graduate, will work with Kalihi Kai Elementary, where nearly 80 percent of the school’s 600 students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a key indicator of poverty.

“This is about making the environment someplace that they look forward to coming to every day. I want to figure out ways to make a child feel like, ‘I can’t wait to go to school,’ ” Shimabukuro said. “We want them to be excited, to be inspired.”

Kalihi Kai fifth-grader Matthew Valeriano, 10, said he and his friends were excited when they first learned Shimabukuro would be working with the school.

“We were tapping each other, just like, ‘Oh, my God,’ and we went home and told our parents. I hope I get to learn how to play ukulele really fast like him and not have to look at the ukulele when I play,” he said, adding, “I like music class because it’s not so serious.”

Singer-songwriter Johnson, a Kahuku High & Intermediate graduate, will work with Waianae Elementary and Kamaile Academy along with Woodard.

“Two of my favorite things are drawing pictures and playing an instrument,” Johnson told Kalihi Kai Elementary students before performing his song, “Upside Down,” with Shimabukuro. “When I learned how to do those two things, guess what? Never in my life again was I ever bored.”

Kalihi Kai Principal Laura Vines called the program an amazing opportunity. She said it will provide training in arts strategies for teachers across all subjects, and give them access to arts supplies and musical instruments through corporate sponsors.

Vines said when she became the school’s principal two years ago, Kalihi Kai ranked “second from the bottom in the whole state — the worst elementary school in Honolulu” on the state’s Strive HI accountability system, which tracks achievement and growth on math and reading tests.

“With the arts integration, we’re hoping to take things to another level and raise the level of critical thinking, visual thinking strategies,” she said.

Woodard, who lives in Southern California, serves as a member of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities and is working with seven schools nationwide.

“I know that it works. I know that infusing arts into a curriculum enriches the curriculum and the teacher’s ability to impart more knowledge,” she said. “And, frankly, it creates more joy, besides all the factual benefits. Part of an education is nurturing the individual. You’re creating a citizen.”

Rae Takemoto, program director for Turnaround Arts Hawaii, said the program involves two years of full support and a third year designed to “wean” schools off of direct support.

“The idea is if we strategically use the arts to meet schools’ needs, build the infrastructure and community partnerships, when the program ends, the schools will be able to sustain this,” she said. “Hawaii was selected because we have the need and we have the potential for change.”

Turnaround Arts is funded through a public-private partnership, with the U.S. Department of Education, the National Endowment of the Arts, the Ford Foundation and other foundations committing to spend $5 million over three years. Locally, the state Department of Education and the Hawaii Arts Alliance are program partners.