Customized Data Reports Released for the Third Year to Over 600 CPS Schools

For the third consecutive year, Ingenuity is thrilled to release Creative Schools Roadmaps—a customized arts education planning tool created in partnership with the CPS Department of Arts Education. Creative Schools Roadmaps have been distributed to more than 600 Chicago Public Schools (CPS) that completed the Creative Schools Survey in the fall. 

“Creative Schools Roadmaps are quite an innovation for education leaders actively seeking ways to increase equity for their students,” said Nicole Upton, Executive Director at Ingenuity. “They serve as an actionable and transparent guide for Principals and Arts Liaisons to assess how their arts education programs compare to schools within their Network and across the District.”

Creative Schools Roadmaps are based on CPS Arts Education Plan benchmarks. Not only are they a tool for evaluation, but a model for planning. This school year, the Roadmaps were distributed in December, one month earlier than last school year to expedite the planning process for current year students.

More specifically, Roadmaps include for every school:

• • Overall rating on the Creative Schools Certification, the school-level arts indicator.
  • Access metrics that assess access to arts programming, such as staffing and minutes of arts instruction provided.
  • Quality metrics that assess the ways a school brings the arts to its students, such as utilization of arts learning standards to arts partnerships.
  • Creative Schools Supports available for the current school year that include opt-in professional learning and grant opportunities.
  • Planning for Subsequent School Years (*new this year*) an outline with opportunities for growth and suggested improvement actions.

All of the analyses and compiling of information for Creative Schools Roadmaps are done with R, a statistical computing language. Visit our website to view a Sample CPS Elementary School Roadmap and Sample CPS High School Roadmap. 

Ingenuity is the only organization that annually collects, analyzes, and reports on CPS arts education data necessary for improving arts program access, quality, and equity for students. Transparency is at the core of Ingenuity’s data stewardship. CPS arts education data is publicly available on artlook® so that taxpayers, arts partners, and sector leaders can target resources toward the schools that need them most. Creative Schools Roadmaps for every CPS school are planned to be published on artlook® in upcoming months. 

Ingenuity is a backbone arts education 501(c)(3) with core programs in data, advocacy, grant-making and professional learning. The organization’s collective-impact approach to arts advocacy drives partnerships, insights and investments in the arts for 330,000 students in Chicago Public Schools. A nationally recognized arts advocacy leader, Ingenuity has advanced the most progress in CPS arts education in 40 years.