The Need for a Different School Structure: Why Making Performing Arts the Core of Academic Structure Enhances a Student’s Ability

Traditionally, performing arts are considered electives in schools; either it’s not required to have performing arts credits at all or a very minimal amount are necessary to graduate. Los Angeles High School of the Arts (LAHSA) took a different approach where the academic courses including English, math, history, and the sciences are driven by theatre and the arts instead of the other way around. This new philosophy believes “the arts enhance students’ self-concepts, communication skills and performances in academic disciplines, improve attitudes towards and perceptions of other cultures, and raise scores on Standardized Assessment Tests” (schoolloop.com/artscore). 

LAHSA originally was a part of Belmont High School, a huge complex of over 5,000 students. The teachers were given an opportunity in 1997 to design nine learning environments focused on a particular area of study to give the students an identity and voice within the large school (schoolloop.com/history). This lead to the creation of Belmont Academy of Performing Arts (BAPA), which placed “an educational emphasis on theatre and the arts” (schoolloop.com/history). In 2007, Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) offered BAPA an opportunity to become one of their first pilot schools, creating LAHSA. Pilot schools are models of educational innovation within urban public schools that are still part of the school district but have certain freedoms to oversee budget, staffing, governance, and curriculum and assessment. LAHSA left the Belmont campus in 2010 and joined the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools Campus in Koreatown, remaining a public performing arts school serving the enrollment zone with no audition required (schooloop.com/history). 

The mission statement of LAHSA is to “foster a rich academic and artistic community inspiring our students to be independent, cooperative young adults who meet challenges with creativity and determination” (schoolloop.com/about). Guiding the curriculum to help students live up to goals set by LAHSA and LAUSD is a model called VOICE, which stands for: 

V - Visionary Leaders and Artists who use the arts to create awareness, sensitivity, tolerance, and a higher quality of life for all

O - Open-minded Community Members who use diplomacy to improve and enhance the social, political, and environmental well-being of their communities

I - Independent Learners who set goals, seek answers, and create solutions

C - Collaborative Problem Solvers who challenge themselves, think critically, and work with others to make carefully analyzed and evaluated decisions

E - Effective Communicators who use literacy, numeracy, media, and technology to articulate their ideas (schoolloop.com/eslrs)

This model serves as a basis for the district’s curriculum. Every class at LAHSA adheres to this model through the use of theatre and arts. The school’s objective for the arts is to have each student develop an artistic perception by learning essential vocabulary to communicate effectively, gain a creative expression by producing artwork, maintain a historical and cultural context in the work they study and create, develop an aesthetic valuing and apply it to their lifelong experiences, and to create connections across all curricula areas (schoolloop.com/artsobjectives). 

One main way of adhering to this model and achieving these objectives is through coordinating thematic units through ‘Linked Learning.’ Linked Learning is defined as “A multiyear, comprehensive high school program of integrated academic and career technical study that is organized around a broad theme, interest area, or industry sector” (linkedlearning.org). This integrated approach has proven to produce significant results including higher graduation rates and an increase in students who enroll in post-secondary education. Teachers at LAHSA cooperatively work with an interdisciplinary approach to unify the classes in an “organic whole, rather than as divided individual pursuits” (schoolloop.com/interdisciplinary). Teachers and students work in ‘Action-Based Projects’ to develop the students’ capacity for success in the next step of their life, whether work or continued education. Each semester a new theme is chosen for the project which allows students to explore different aspects of theatre and the arts and to highlight their strengths. The students cooperatively research the subject, use individual strengths to create a performance piece together, rehearse, and perform the culmination for their peers, parents and assorted community members. 

The freedom to experiment with this different methodology of teaching and curriculum structure comes with criteria -- LAHSA is required to raise test scores and graduation rates while still maintaining California Standards in teaching. In the few years that LAHSA has been in operation, it has been ranked 317 out of 1500 top schools in the country by Newsweek Magazine (*Newsweek*). Incredibly, the population that LAHSA serves is primarily "at-risk" or marginalized youth coming from low-income families and often immigrants. Drama teacher Annie Simmons estimated that about 90-95% of students are children of immigrants, and about 20% are undocumented, meaning they can’t attend college without paying international rates and without going through the hardship of proving residency. Mrs. Simmons stated that most students come from Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Korea, Guam and islands around the Philippines. 100% of the student body receives free lunch. This population traditionally suffers on standardized tests and has a low graduation rate.

This new structure of teaching, focusing on a smaller group of students and a particular area of study, theatre and arts, emphasizing cross-classroom curriculum, has proven that a new outlook on teaching needs to spread across the county. If in only a few years this pilot school can produce an extreme rise in graduation rates and test scores, any school can apply this technique to change the face of our education system in our country, and possibly the world. 

For more information about LAHSA, visit their website.