[Letter from Jack Davis and William McCarter to M'Lou Bancroft, August 30, 1991] Page: 4 of 30
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INTRODUCTION. The University of North Texas and a consortium of area school districts (Dallas ISD,
Denton ISD, Fort Worth ISD, Hurst-Euless-Bedford ISD, Pilot Point ISD, Plano ISD), museums (Amon Carter
Museum, Dallas Museum of Art, Kimbell Art Museum, Meadows Museum, Modern Art Museum of Fort
Worth), arts councils (Arts Council of Fort Worth and Tarrant County, Greater Denton Arts Council) and state
agencies (Texas Commission on the Arts, Texas Education Agency) established the North Texas Institute for
Educators on the Visual Arts (NTIEVA) in January, 1990, with a five-year, $625,000 matching grant from the
Getty Center for Education in the Arts, an operating unit of the J. Paul Getty Trust. One of six regional
consortia in the U.S. to receive a Getty grant, the North Texas Institute has received matching funds to date
from the Amon G. Carter Foundation, the University of North Texas Foundation, Incorporated, The Crystelle
Waggoner Charitable Trust, the Texas Commission on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts, The
Greater Denton Arts Council, individual donors, and cash and in-kind contributions from the consortium
member institutions.
The Edward and Betty Marcus Foundation is invited to participate in the remaining three years of
the Institute's activities with a three-year grant of $225,000 (1992-1994).
GOALS. The North Texas Institute for Educators on the Visual Arts has a major goal of developing within
children the desire to be life-long audience/participants and supporters of the visual arts. This goal involves
making children aware of art in museums, particularly local museums, as well as building confidence in
approaching their entire visual world. It also involves increasing the appreciation of the cultural aspects of
society in an increasingly technological world. It is the belief of the Institute that to be truly effective, young
people must be exposed to art within the context of total learning. By initiating an art program in kindergarten
and sequentially developing it throughout the entire elementary education experience, the Institute proposes to
connect art to major areas of the school curriculum such as reading, writing, mathematics and social studies.
Connections are made through an approach called discipline- based art education (DBAE) which introduces
children to the four foundational sub-disciplines that contribute to the creation and understanding of art: studio
art, art history, art criticism, and aesthetics (See Attachment I). Consistent with this approach, the 67th Texas
Legislature (1981) prescribed essential elements in art for each grade level (See Attachment II). Both are a part
of a national movement to reform education in this country during the last decade, including a call for an
expansion of education in the arts. In contrast to existing visual arts programs which generally emphasize art
production, this more comprehensive and rigorous approach was initiated by the Getty Center and endorsed by
the College Board, the Council of Chief State School Officers, the National Art Education Association, the
National Endowment for the Arts and the U.S. Department of Education.
To respond to these new directions, the decision-makers in schools and museums must be educated and
existing staff in both must be trained. The North Texas Institute provides intensive training in the theory and
application of DBAE for school district teams comprised of art specialists, art supervisors, classroom teachers,
principals, superintendents and school board members, as well as museum educators and docents. This training
is primarily accomplished in intensive staff development institutes that provide lectures and workshops as well
as encounters with the visual world. Central to the experiences in the training are visits to the major museums
in Dallas and Fort Worth. These visits lead to the opportunity for teachers and docents to coordinate public
school and museum art education programs as DBAE is implemented in the schools. The Institute faculty and
staff include distinguished art educators from the University of North Texas and other universities throughout
the United States, public school art specialists, and graduate students in art education. The Participants'
Handbook, which details the agenda for the 1991 Summer Institute, is on file with the Executive Director of the
Marcus Foundation. The Institute has also conducted an Executive Leadership Retreat for the business, arts,
and education leadership of the North Texas area, as well as Preparatory Sessions for art specialist teachers and
museum educators.
Following the intensive summer training in DBAE, the school and museum teams implement the program
with children during the following school year. During this time, Institute staff are available for support and
guidance.
During the first two years, the Institute has trained 276 art specialists, classroom teachers, principals and
docents who have returned to their institutions to train fellow professionals and volunteers and implement a
discipline-based art education curriculum for approximately 7,000 children. In the remaining three years of the
project, it is projected that an additional 600 to 700 teachers, principals, and docents will be trained in DBAE.
They, in turn, will work with fellow professionals, delivering a discipline-based curriculum to a potential
audience of 35,000 to 40,000 children. The goal is to have at least one team trained in each of the 370
elementary schools in the six consortium member school districts by the end of five years.1
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Davis, Donald Jack. [Letter from Jack Davis and William McCarter to M'Lou Bancroft, August 30, 1991], letter, August 30, 1991; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1073729/m1/4/: accessed June 11, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.