CAN Mission

The purpose of CAN is to sustain and expand a sustainable model of professional learning for arts educators in public schools to strengthen their pedagogy, instruction, and leadership skills in order to better serve students and support their artistic voices and creative expression.

CAN National Partner Organizations

NYC Public Schools Arts Office

The NYC Department of Education’s Arts Office leads arts education efforts for NYC’s 1+ million students and 3,000+ arts teachers. Through instructional resource development, teacher & leader professional development, partnerships with NYC’s rich arts & cultural community, and direct student arts programming, the Arts Office strives to support schools in providing equitable and sequential arts education for all students. 

NAEA 

Founded in 1947, The National Art Education Association (NAEA) is the leading professional membership organization exclusively for visual arts, design, and media arts education professionals. Members include preK, elementary, middle, and high school visual arts educators; college and university professors; university students preparing to become educators; researchers and scholars; teaching artists; administrators and supervisors; and art museum educators—as well as more than 54,000 students who are members of the National Art Honor Society.  https://www.arteducators.org/ 

EdTA

The Educational Theatre Association (EdTA) is an international nonprofit organization that serves as the professional association for theatre educators. EdTA is the parent organization of the International Thespian Society, an honorary organization that has inducted more than 2.5 million Thespians since its founding in 1929. Additionally, EdTA operates the Educational Theatre Foundation, the organization’s philanthropic arm dedicated to increasing opportunity and access to school theatre. https://schooltheatre.org/about/ 

NAfME

National Association for Music Education (NAfME), among the world’s largest arts education organizations, is the only association that addresses all aspects of music education. NAfME advocates at the local, state, and national levels; provides resources for teachers, parents, and administrators; hosts professional development events; and offers a variety of opportunities for students and teachers. The Association has supported music educators at all teaching levels for more than a century.  Since 1907, NAfME has worked to ensure that every student has access to a well-balanced, comprehensive, and high-quality program of music instruction taught by qualified teachers. NAfME’s activities and resources have been largely responsible for the establishment of music education as a profession, for the promotion and guidance of music study as an integral part of the school curriculum, and for the development of the National Standards for Arts Education. https://nafme.org/about/  

NDEO

National Dance Education Organization (NDEO) is a non-profit organization that supports dance educators in every setting and genre. Since 1998, NDEO has had a direct impact on dance education centered in the arts. With its 4,200+ members from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and more than 25 other countries, NDEO remains well-positioned to continue advancing the field and advocating for #DanceEducationforALL. Members include early childhood dance educators, K-12 dance teachers, dance studio owners, college and university dance professors, university students preparing to become dance educators, dance teaching artists, choreographers, dance company directors, and administrators. In addition, through NDEO’s National Honor Society for Dance Arts (NHSDA) program over 15,000 outstanding dance students have been recognized for their artistic merit, leadership and academic achievements over the past few years ensuring a bright future for our field. https://www.ndeo.org/