CPS has launched our Arts Education Plan 2.0: Cultivating Creativity—a bold new vision for arts learning across the District. Building on a decade of progress, this plan redefines how CPS measures access and quality in arts education, focusing not just on opportunities, but on the depth of student learning. With this plan, CPS is setting a new standard to ensure every student experiences rigorous, inclusive, and transformative arts instruction.
For the first time in over a decade, Chicago Public Schools has a comprehensive, data-driven view of arts education across the district. With a 99% completion rate of the 2023-24 Creative Schools Survey, we now hold a clear and detailed picture of where access and quality are thriving—and where schools need targeted support to meet our shared standards. This Arts Education Plan 2.0: Cultivating Creativity leverages that clarity to chart a bold course forward, ensuring every CPS student has access to rigorous, inclusive, and transformative arts learning experiences.
This plan builds on the legacy of the 2012 CPS Arts Education Plan and the Creative Schools Certification (CSC), while refining how the district defines and measures “quality.” Until now, many of the indicators categorized under “quality” in the CSC—such as arts expenditures, access to arts partnerships, professional learning, instructional approaches, and use of arts learning standards—have been more accurately reflective of school-level “access” conditions. These inputs are essential, but they tell us whether students can participate in arts education—not what they’re actually learning or how teaching and learning is delivered.
Our Goals
Our plan lays the foundation for a new era of equity and excellence in the arts at CPS by focusing on two core goals: expanding access to arts education and establishing a new infrastructure for its quality.
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Access to Arts Education
Every student will have equitable access to sequential, developmentally appropriate arts instruction delivered by certified educators across a range of disciplines. The plan prioritizes improvements in staffing, instructional time, arts course offerings, teacher recruitment and retention, school conditions, access to facilities and resources, and partnerships targeted to areas of greatest need.
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High-Quality Arts Education
CPS will define, support, and scale high-quality instruction in the arts—grounded in rigorous curricula, meaningful assessments, effective instructional models, and sustained professional learning. This goal also underscores the importance of arts partnerships and introduces a new approach to measuring instructional quality through systems of data and research, ensuring continuous improvement and alignment with student needs.
The strategies in this Plan aim to bring schools currently rated as Developing, Emerging, or with Incomplete Data into alignment with CSC’s Excelling standard by building a deeper understanding of what excellent arts instruction truly looks like.
The strategies are also designed to be flexible, with the expectation that they will adapt and improve as they are implemented. They acknowledge that Chicago’s neighborhoods have a distinct history and voice and that no one model or solution will work for all schools. Rather, the goals and recommendations represent a starting point to leverage the resources and opportunities that already exist in the system.
This plan is more than a roadmap—it is a renewed promise of equity—and a reaffirmed belief that every child in Chicago deserves the transformative power of the arts.