Without a clear and shared definition of high-quality arts education—and systems to measure and support it—there is no assurance that CPS students are receiving the kinds of deep, meaningful, and transformative artistic experiences that empower them as creative and confident learners. School leaders require models and systems for supporting high quality instruction in the arts so that educators have the resources necessary to deeply engage and inspire students through the arts.
Ideal State
In every CPS school, high-quality arts education is a core component of student learning—driven by developmentally appropriate, standards-aligned instruction and supported by strong leadership, a collaborative school culture, and sustained community partnerships. It is not solely the responsibility of arts educators, but a shared commitment across the district, where school leaders, general educators, families, and arts partners work together to ensure that the arts are integral to every child’s educational experience.
To realize the vision articulated in the Portrait of a CPS Arts Graduate, CPS will support a developmentally aligned instructional approach that delivers coherent, high-quality arts learning from PreK through 12th grade. This approach honors the natural progression of students’ artistic, cognitive, and social-emotional development, while remaining responsive to school-level choice, staffing structures, and community contexts.
Recognizing that arts integration and discipline-specific instruction are both essential and can continue to exist at all grade levels, the district will guide schools toward a flexible instructional framework organized around four developmental phases:
| Grade Band | Instructional Approach | What It Looks Like |
|---|---|---|
| PreK–2 | Creative Exploration | Students engage in imaginative play, sensory exploration, and expressive risk-taking. Learning is multimodal, joyful, and focused on curiosity and foundational self-expression through movement, sound, and visual storytelling. |
| Grades 3–5 | Arts Integration | Students explore multiple art forms while making cross-curricular connections through integrated, project-based learning. Instruction is collaborative and reflective, building artistic vocabulary and reinforcing learning across subjects. |
| Grades 6–8 | Exploratory Choice + Foundations of Mastery | Students choose artistic disciplines for focused study and begin developing technique, critique, and creative identity. Learning is culturally responsive, student-led, and includes portfolio work and early performance opportunities. |
| Grades 9–12 | Artistic Pathways | Students pursue advanced, sequential coursework in a chosen discipline or interdisciplinary path. Instruction is standards-aligned, career-connected, and includes real-world opportunities like exhibitions, internships, and senior capstone projects. |
This model does not prescribe a single method of delivery. Instead, it provides a unifying vision that allows schools to structure their instructional practices in ways that reflect these developmental goals—whether through classroom-based instruction, teaching artist partnerships, integrated learning units, or elective-based programming. This approach is about creating clarity, coherence, and opportunity—ensuring that every CPS student, regardless of school type or neighborhood, experiences a meaningful and developmentally rich journey in the arts.
Rigorous and responsive instruction in arts education requires a deep understanding of both the artistic process and the diverse needs of learners. Lessons emphasize process over product, promote inquiry and choice, and cultivate artistic growth, self-expression, and reflective practice. Educators create inclusive, responsive learning environments that incorporate culturally relevant pedagogy, interdisciplinary connections, and differentiated strategies—making the arts personally meaningful and academically rigorous.
Arts educators are expert teachers and practicing artists. They are supported at CPS through access to high-quality curriculum, interdisciplinary instructional resources, and collaborative professional learning communities. As integral members of the school community, they contribute to school improvement planning and build authentic relationships with families and neighborhoods—often teaching entire student populations and multiple members of the same household.
School and district leaders understand the characteristics of high-quality arts education and are equipped to recognize, support, and champion it. Arts organizations serve as strategic partners—accountable to school needs and student outcomes—offering programming that aligns with district priorities and complements classroom instruction.
In this ideal state, high-quality arts education is not isolated to individual classrooms or select schools—it is a districtwide standard of excellence, guided by shared expectations, supported by robust systems, and sustained by a vibrant ecosystem of educators, partners, and families dedicated to nurturing student creativity, learning, and well-being.
High quality teaching and learning in the arts requires:
- Rigorous and culturally-responsive curricula, with authentic assessments
- Developmentally-aligned instructional approaches to provide a diversity of learning modalities
- Ongoing and job-embedded professional learning for arts and non-arts educators
- Authentic, real-world student experiences that leverage the assets across the Chicago arts education sector
- Regular analysis of practice data and research to inform future training and resource development
Current State Data
Curriculum is often misunderstood as simply a series of learning activities, when a truly comprehensive and rigorous curriculum includes all of the educator and student materials, flexible content, and embedded assessments. The market of available arts curricula contains varying levels of quality, accessibility, and cost, leading many educators to develop their own materials or piece together from multiple, disconnected sources. As a result, quality can vary widely based on individual educator capacity, school and organizational leadership priorities, and available funding.
CPS has numerous frameworks and priorities that describe certain aspects of a high quality student experience, but those resources are not well-publicized, organized, or attending to arts education.
While a definition of arts partner quality has been established through the Arts Partner Standards of Practice, there is currently no system that measures, understands, or directly supports arts educators’ instructional practice at the classroom or program level.
With the many disparate ways quality is tracked within CPS, there is no unified system to measure the effectiveness of teaching in arts education. A new system will need to be created that includes existing classroom conditions data and arts indicators of educator and student mastery.