The Student Voices Campaign launching on March 1. 2014, gives students a platform to demonstrate their creative power and passion for the arts with their elected officials. Students are invited to upload original videos of two minutes or less that respond to the question ‘What Does Your Creativity Look Like?’ at http://studentvoicescampaign.org/ between March 1 May 31, 2014. Students can sing, speak, dance, animate, act, speak or paint their answers.

As local districts set priorities and funding allocations to comply with California’s new Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), young advocates can offer powerful evidence of the ways that arts education empower and equip young people for a successful future.

For the second year of the campaign the California Alliance for Arts Education is pleased to partner with some of the state’s leading arts leaders, including the CalArts Community Arts Partnership, the California State Summer School for the Arts, Center Theatre Group, Inner City Arts, Inocente, Shine Global’s Academy Award-winning documentary and Venice Arts.

CalArts Community Arts Partnership
The award-winning CalArts Community Arts Partnership (CAP), a co-curricular program of the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), offers free, after-school and school-based arts programs for youth ages 6-18 in every discipline taught at CalArts. Programs are offered at public schools, community centers and social service agencies, covering a thousand square mile radius across Los Angeles County. With classes led by a teaching corps of accomplished CalArts faculty, alumni and student instructors, CAP participants learn to create original works of art and to experiment with prevailing conventions of artistic expression. CAP’s success has served as a model for other arts education organizations locally and nationally. And the program has received numerous honors, including The President’s Committee on Arts and Humanities’ Coming Up Taller Award, which recognizes effective programs that foster the creative and intellectual development of America’s children. http://calarts.edu/cap

California State Summer School for the Arts Foundation
California State Summer School for the Arts (CSSSA) is an intensive, four-week residential arts training program for talented and motivated high school students. The program is held each summer on the campus of California Institute of the Arts in Valencia. CSSSA’s mission is to train the next generation of artists and arts professionals in animation, creative writing, dance, film & video, music, theater and visual arts. Whether they become practicing artists, actors or musicians; join the technology sectors of the entertainment industry; or work in arts organizations, CSSSA graduates are creative thinkers well-prepared for the workplace of the 21st-century. The California State Summer School for the Arts Foundation (CSSSAF) was founded in 1986 as a non-profit organization to raise private-sector funds from corporations, individuals and foundations to provide scholarships so that no student is turned away due to lack of funds. The application deadline for CSSSA 2013 is February 28, 2013. www.csssaf.org/ and http://www.csssa.ca.gov/

Center Theatre Group
Center Theatre Group is Los Angeles’ preeminent non-profit theatre company. On our three stages – the Ahmanson Theatre, the Mark Taper Forum and the Kirk Douglas Theatre – we present the highest quality and broadest range of theatre: groundbreaking new works, explosive productions of the classics and hit Broadway plays and musicals.

The same high standards that we apply to our stages extend to our education programs. Through performances for students, residencies at schools, discount tickets and educational materials, we reach each year over 20,000 young people who would not otherwise experience professional theatre. http://www.centertheatregroup.org/

INOCENTE
INOCENTE is an intensely personal and vibrant coming of age documentary about a fifteen-year old girl, Inocente, who refuses to let her dream of becoming an artist be caged by her life as an undocumented immigrant forced to live homeless for the last nine years. Told in her own words and through her paintings, reveals a world where buildings drip in yellow and orange, where pink and turquoise planets twinkle with rescued dreams, and one-eyed childlike creatures play amongst loved babies and purple clouds. http://www.inocentedoc.com/

Inner-City Arts
Inner-City Arts, widely regarded as one of the nation's most effective arts education providers, is an oasis of learning, achievement and creativity in the heart of Skid Row, and a vital partner in the work of creating a safer, healthier
Los Angeles. Providing access to the arts, Inner-City Arts is an investment in the youth of Los Angeles. Creating a bridge between the studio and the classroom, Inner-City Arts' unique approach to arts education measurably improves academic and personal outcomes for children and youth, including those students with Limited English Proficiency who are at risk of academic failure. http://www.inner-cityarts.org/

Venice Arts
Now in its twenty-first year, Venice Arts is a non-profit arts organization that is committed to providing high-level arts education for low-income youth in the areas of photography, filmmaking, and multimedia. In addition to its core Art Mentoring & Education Program, Venice Arts implements regional, statewide, and international Documentary Programs with both adults and children; presents exhibitions, public programs, and workshops for adults centered around documentary photography and film; and consults on media arts, visual storytelling, and arts education with organizations and groups locally and internationally. It is the philosophy of Venice Arts that self-expression, particularly through the arts, has the potential to transform and empower young people to see greater possibilities for themselves and for their communities. http://www.venicearts.org/