Nine Oahu public school students opened a talent showcase performance at the White House on Wednesday as part of a national program that helps turn around high-needs, low-performing public schools through arts education.

The Turnaround Arts program, a White House initiative led by the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities, launched in three Hawaii schools last fall: Kalihi Kai Elementary, Waianae Elementary and Kamaile Academy charter school. The schools are among 49 Turnaround Arts schools across the country this year.

Dressed in matching blue aloha shirts and kukui nut lei, the Hawaii students performed an opening oli, or chant, to start Wednesday’s show, hosted by first lady Michelle Obama. The students then performed a song with local musician and Turnaround Arts mentor Paula Fuga through singing, ukulele and hula.

Students from nearly 30 Turnaround Arts schools in eight other states also performed as part of the hourlong showcase with singing, dancing, playing instruments and spoken word.

“My goodness, do we have some talent up on this stage right here,” the first lady, who sat in the front row, said after the performances. “I am so proud of you all, your schools, your principals and your teachers. … I just want the nation to see this because these kids are possible in every corner of our nation and the world. This isn’t strange. This is who these kids are, this is their potential if we invest in them.”

Launched as a pilot in 2012, the Turnaround Arts program helps schools hire arts and music teachers, purchase art supplies and musical instruments, and train educators to integrate the arts with core subjects such as reading, math and science. Celebrity artists and mentors adopt participating schools. In addition to Fuga, Hawaii’s artists are musician Jack Johnson, ukulele virtuoso Jake Shimabukuro and actress Alfre Woodard.

The initiative was expanded after an outside evaluation found academic achievement had improved at Turnaround Arts pilot schools. The study, by Booz Allen Hamilton and the University of Chicago Urban Education Institute, found the participating schools showed an average 23 percent improvement in math proficiency and a 13 percent average increase in reading proficiency over three years. Attendance also improved, while student disciplinary problems decreased.

“Our schools have just been pretty phenomenal this first year in implementing so many components of Turnaround Arts. We’re so proud of our schools,” Rae Takemoto, Turnaround Arts Hawaii program director, said in an interview. “In less than a year, we’re seeing classrooms transforming.”

The arts integration has “filled in all the gaps, tied it together, and made the learning more engaging and deeper across reading and social studies and science and math,” Takemoto said. ‘The children have more confidence to speak up. It gets them out of their seats, interacting with each other.”

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. The Hawaii Arts Alliance and the state Department of Education are the local program partners, providing schools with resources, support and training to use the arts strategically to meet school goals.

“President Obama’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities has made reinvesting in arts education — particularly in America’s struggling schools — a primary focus,” George Stevens Jr. and Margo Lion, the committee’s co-chairs, said in a statement. Turnaround Arts “shows that our most fragile schools can be transformed through an infusion of the arts.”

The White House on Wednesday announced a partnership with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to help fund Turnaround Arts after the Obama administration leaves office.

To see an online video of Hawaii’s performance, go to 808ne.ws/25n0SCR.