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Home > Interviews > Interview with Laura Reeder
Voices of Innovation
Interview with Laura Reeder, Executive Director, Partners for Arts Education, New York
What role does Partners for Arts Education (PAE) play in keeping arts in New York's public schools?
PAE keeps the arts in New York's public schools by keeping our artistic and cultural resources connected and savvy about each other…so that when artistic excellence and curricular relevance is needed, it is available and integral. Listen 
What is your relationship with other State arts organizations?
We really are a center for their exchange and we believe that a true partnership has real benefits for each participant. As host to the statewide arts in education conference "CommonGround" and as the Technical Assistance Program (TAP) provider, we do take very seriously the individual roles of our allies.
- The NYS Council on the Arts (NYSCA) relies on us to sustain grassroots relationships with artists, cultural organizations and schools in each corner of this big state. We scan the field for trends and gaps that can use targeted funding, training, or research. We rely on NYSCA for leadership and their peer-advised funding consortia for transparency and integrity in our programs.
- The NYS Alliance for Arts Education (NYSAAE) is our advocacy partner and they maintain the portal into the NYS Education department, professional education organizations and Board of Cooperative Educational Services so that we can translate education legislation and policy quickly and effectively.
- The Association of Teaching Artists (ATA) provides us with current and critical information about the needs of individual teaching artists so that we can deepen our grantmaking and assistance programs to best suit their needs. We are the only publicly-supported agency at the state level that can directly grant funds to individual teaching artists. Listen
What are the key concerns for PAE this year?
Our concerns all center on the best use of distributed leadership and strengthening of networks.
One of the trends is in capacity-building for arts and educational relationships. We see that strategic and comprehensive thinking is generally focused on individual partnerships, but not always on whole-school/district/agency longevity. Thus, when a really great arts-in-education partnership experiences leadership turnover, or a funding shift occurs, then rich arts integration is at risk.
We are also concerned that excellent use of technology, trans-cultural relationships, and higher education is still limited by region or program. We are determined to connect more models to each other for timely adoption of 21st Century practices….keeping up with our learners! Listen
What are the key ingredients for making sure a community's public schools have arts learning in the classroom?
I think the key ingredients include:
- PLAYING NICE…being as inclusive as possible and always seeking to collaborate before re-inventing resources,
- PRACTICING CREATIVITY…believing that we can do just about anything if we construct it with innovation and imagination,
- SEEKING EXCELLENCE…looking for fabulous leaders that we can learn from and celebrating our mentors,
- CONNECTING THE DOTS…introducing someone to their next opportunity, knowing that it makes us all richer,
- ANIMATING THE RIGHT-BRAIN…seeking everyday places for artistic mindfulness. Listen
What can other States learn from the structure and mission of PAE?
Other states can learn that it is worth the energy to maintain a balance of local-to-larger alliances for the most nimble arts education support. PAE has seen many changes in public/private budgets, leadership, and policy that might have weakened our ability to deliver services if we did not have a handy ally somewhere at the grassroots or global level to rely on for perspective and insight. The NEA is currently hosting Arts Education Leadership Institutes that really encourage this balance. Listen
What does arts learning mean to you personally?
Currently, I find deep arts learning when I am engaged in focused listening. When I set my teaching artistry to the side to become an administrator…I thought that I might not experience personal arts learning again. But now, between my PAE work and as Newsbreak Editor for Teaching Artist Journal, I have been designing questions and interviewing amazing thought-leaders that have each transformed my creative vision. I have learned that politics can be positive and powerful from Assemblywoman Louise Slaughter (D-NY), I have learned from Kathryn Dunham that a signature style can have many owners, I have learned from Daniel Pink that creativity can be richly owned by left-brain practitioners, and I have learned that the arts can actually feed hungry children with Lily Yeh. Listen
Can you relay a story of how arts learning has made a difference in someone's life?
Each year another life-changing story emerges from our arts-learning repertoire at PAE…and my favorite one for this moment in time involves two young women, sisters from an urban public school district in Central New York.
The older sister was always struggling with grades, she was impatient with following others, she appeared to be disorganized, but she used her visual arts skills to create a scholarship-winning portfolio, attend an excellent school for the arts, and as a freshman was awarded a fellowship to study civic issues that were beyond her grasp in a traditional social studies setting. Her younger sister is the class valedictorian, athletic, and organized. She has recently been awarded a grant to organize a student-directed production of an off-Broadway musical, giving voice to many other creative students. Both of these ladies have found an entrepreneurial and aesthetically deep approach to their own life choices through a combination approach to arts learning.
My hope is that we all find such opportunities by placing artistry into our everyday actions. Listen
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