Dive Brief:

• First Lady Michell Obama and the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities will host a student talent show Tuesday to showcase the success of the Turnaround Arts program.  
• Performing at the White House are students involved in the program, a two-year-old initiative that brought arts education to eight low-performing elementary and middle schools. The event will also feature celebrity performances.  
• The program, which started as an experiment to test how arts can positively affect student outcomes, has been so successful that it is expected to expand to 35 schools in the 2014-2015 school year.  

Dive Insight:

Michelle Obama, an avid supporter of arts education, has been gushing about the program and its successes. In a statement prior to the talent show, she said, "The Turnaround Arts program has exceeded not just our expectations, but our wildest hopes and dreams. Math and reading scores have gone up in these schools, attendance is up, enrollment is up, parent engagement is up, suspensions have plummeted and two of the schools in our pilot improved so dramatically that they are no longer in turnaround status."

The Turnaround Arts program began in 2012 in low-performing districts in Iowa, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Louisiana, Oregon, Montana, Colorado, and the District of Columbia.  The expansion of the program will spread the initiative to districts in California, Illinois, and Minnesota, and will cost $5 million — funded by a medley of public and private sources that include the Department of Education, the National Endowment of the Arts, and the Ford Foundation.