Save 20 underprivileged children

DEPAC is working to sponsor 20 underprivileged children in Jacksonville, FL. These children come from low income neighborhoods and are at risk to a myriad of risk-taking behaviors. Our goal is to help provide these children with the opportunity to change their lives by participating in our program. The program will provide after-school tutoring/mentoring along with art enrichment activities to children that would not otherwise have the opportunity or financial support to do so.

You can help us reach this goal by simply downloading this tool bar http://www.goodsearch.com/toolbar/delphonse-education-and-performing-arts-center. Between October 1 - October 31, Good search will make a donation to our organization for every tool bar that is downloaded and used.We are asking that you download this tool bar and tell a friend to do the same thing. In addition to the donation, Good search will be giving an additional contribution to the first 100 organizations that reach 1000 downloads. Help support a good cause by downloading this tool bar, and give the gift of hope to these children.

Help Support DEPAC

 

If you’re like most people, you want to support the causes that are important to you. However these days, it can be difficult to find the money or the time. That’s why the Delphonse Education and Performing Arts Center (DEPAC) is so excited to be a member and participant organization of the “Compass for Your Cause” program. Through Compass for Your Cause, you’ll be able to support DPEAC even more by doing something you do virtually every day, use your check card for everyday purchases.

Here’s how it works:

1. Open a new BBVA Compass checking account and tell your BBVA Compass Banker to apply our organization code 83717. BBVA Compass will pay us a royalty of $50 for your account opening by October 30, 2010.

2. Apply for a BBVA Compass Visa Check Card tied to your account. BBVA Compass will pay us a royalty of 0.25% of the purchase amount of every signature-based purchase you make with your card. You can even personalize your Check Card with a special DEPAC design to show your support.

How the funds add up:

Example:

100 of DEPAC's friends and members enroll in the program and open checking accounts:

100 x $50 = $5,000 in initial royalty payments

Over the course of one year, you each make an average of $500 in qualifying Check Card purchases.

$500 x 12 months = $6,000 a year

$6,000 x 0.25% = $15

$15 x 100 members = $1,500

$5,000 + 1,500 = $6,500

How to get started:

1. Open a BBVA Compass checking account when BBVA Compass visits us onsite, or at any BBVA Compass Banking Center, or by calling 1–800-COMPASS. When you open your account, be sure to include DEPAC's five-digit code 83717.

2. Apply for a BBVA Compass Visa® Check Card. Once the card arrives, visit us online at www.bbvacompass.com/go/makemycard to personalize your card.

3. Start using your check card! Just make sure you sign for purchases or hit "credit" when you use it, so your purchases will qualify for this program. If you are already a BBVA Compass customer, simply tell your banker to update your account to include our organization’s code 83717. You can also do this by calling 1-800-COMPASS

To get started, connect your current accounts and for more information on the program and policies, visit: http://www.bbvacompass.com/go/yourcause

Closing The Achievement Gap

In a report performed by the Institute of Educational Science entitled "How Black and White students in Public Schools Perform in Mathematics and Reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress" stated that the past half century has witnessed considerable gains in educational attainment in the United States. Although scores have increased for both Black and White students, on average Black students do not perform as well as their White peers.

In 2007, mathematics scores for both Black and White public school students in grades 4 and 8 nationwide, as measured by the main NAEP assessments of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), were higher than in any previous assessment, going back to 1990. This was also true for Black and White fourth-graders on the NAEP 2007 Reading Assessment. For grade 8, reading scores for both Black and White students were higher in 2007 than in the first reading assessment year, 1992, as well as the most recent previous assessment year, 2005.

White students, however, had higher scores than Black students, on average, on all assessments. While the nationwide gaps in 2007 were narrower than in previous assessments at both grades 4 and 8 in mathematics and at grade 4 in reading, White students had average scores at least 26 points higher than Black students in each subject, on a 0-500 scale. 

 The educational gap between Black students and White Students continue to slowly decline as Educators, Teachers, Politicians, and Government continue to search ways to help close this gap sooner. For more information on this issue, please visit http://nces.ed.gov/, or for more information on the Delphonse Education and Performing Arts Center please visit www.mydepac.com.

The Importance of Arts Education

Does Arts Education improve academic success?

There is a correlation between arts education and academic success. It helps to close the gap between student’s academic achievements. The arts provide an incentive to attend school and participate more effectively due to the incentive of participating in the arts program. The effects of arts instruction on learning have found that children who study the arts are:

• Four times more likely to be acknowledged for scholastic achievement;

• Elected to class office within their schools three times as often;

• Four times more likely to participate in a math and science fair;

• Three times more likely to get an award for school attendance; and

• Four times more likely to succeed in winning an award for English competency.

In addition to academic success, students introduced to arts education have heightened soft skills, such as creative thinking, confidence, imagination, elaboration and participation. In a study of more than 2000 middle school students in four states, researchers at Columbia University found that children receiving at least three years of in-school arts instruction scored significantly higher on quantitative tests of creative thinking than their peers with less arts instruction. Students with more arts instruction had index scores averaging 20 points higher than their peers on measures of the aforementioned soft skills.

Nonetheless, arts education develops cognitive skills which may or may not be easily measured through standardized testing. According to Dr. Elliot W. Eisner of Stanford University, schooling in the arts has cognitive effects that help prepare students for the 21st-century workforce. Eisner identifies key competencies of cognitive growth that are developed through an education in the arts.

These include:

• Understanding of healthy relationships;

• Problem solving;

• Attention to distinctions;

• Flexibility and confidence;

• Decision-making skills; and

• Identifying goals and outcomes.


School districts are finding that the arts develop many skills applicable to the “real world” environment. In a study of 91 school districts across the nation, evaluators found that the arts contribute significantly to the creation of the flexible and adaptable knowledge workers that businesses demand to compete in today’s economy.


In addition to supporting employment competencies, arts education in themselves are marketable skills in today’s economy. For instance, today’s media workers are applying arts skills in careers such as video and audio production, Web design, graphic design and advertising. Design skills taught through the arts are both professional and technical and can lead students to careers in the architecture or fashion industries. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has counted more than 2 million full-time workers in artist occupations. In this way, workforce development programs that involve the arts may provide dual benefits, opening up careers in the creative industries for some students while enhancing the overall workforce preparedness of others.

In conclusion, closing the gap of academic achievement can be addressed by encouraging art education not eliminating it from the education system. Due to budget cutbacks in school districts throughout the country, arts.
 
 
"Living the Arts Through Language + Learning: A Report on Community-Based Youth Organizations," Shirley Brice Heath. Americans for the Arts, November 1998


"Learning in and Through the Arts: Curriculum Implications," Burton, Horowitz and Abeles in Champions of Change.

"Ten Lessons the Arts Teach," Elliot Eisner. Learning and the Arts: Crossing Boundaries, Amdur Spitz & Associates, 2000. www.giarts.org/Learning.pdf.

Gaining the Arts Advantage: Lessons from School Districts that Value Arts Education, President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities and the Arts Education Partnership, 1999. www.pcah.gov/gaa/index.html.

"Artist Employment in 2000," Research Division Note # 78, National Endowment for the Arts, May 2001.