LA Promise Fund’s ArtsMatter program is thrilled to have been awarded a $3.3 million Assistance for Arts Education grant from the U.S. Department of Education as part of the federal Arts in Education initiative. Funding will support media arts programming for Los Angeles students and teachers through the close of the 2025-26 academic year. Programming will advance the study of the burgeoning media arts education field while simultaneously building a diverse talent pipeline of Black and Brown students who are prepared to take on jobs in Los Angeles’s media and entertainment sectors.
The new program will build upon ArtsMatter’s past work in media arts education by expanding its services through curriculum development, teacher training, classroom-based arts instruction, and industry partnerships. Over the course of four academic years, more than 60 teachers will participate in arts integration professional development and will collaborate with ArtsMatter Teaching Artists to provide instruction in the media arts to middle and high school students from South Los Angeles. Each year the program will provide over 1,000 students with 40 hours of classroom instruction in graphic design, animation, photography, and filmmaking
LA's rapidly-growing media, entertainment, and digital arts industries have played an integral role in determining ArtsMatter’s program focus areas and have motivated its development of the new field of media arts education. In the last decade, media sectors have expanded by nearly 32% – adding 188,000 new, high-wage jobs (Otis College of Art and Design, 2021). Unfortunately, little of this growth has benefitted the communities we serve since industry jobs require specialized education, training, and entry-level opportunities typically unavailable or inaccessible to our students. The historic under-representation of BIPOC across all areas of media production is yet another barrier, albeit one that may be crumbling in light of renewed efforts to diversify representation and employment in Hollywood and the creative industries.
ArtsMatter is excited to have the opportunity to continue its important work in schools and to do its part in building diverse pipelines into the creative industries in Los Angeles. We look forward to providing many more creative students with the knowledge and skills they need to express themselves and tell their own stories.