NEA Jazz in the Schools is a web-based curriculum designed for high school teachers and students to explore jazz as an indigenous American art form and as a means to understand American history. The free, cross-disciplinary curriculum, produced in partnership with Jazz at Lincoln Center, is available online at www.neajazzintheschools.org. The units meet lesson objectives and national curriculum standards in five subject areas: U.S. history, social studies, arts education/music, civics and government, and geography.

NEA Jazz in the Schools was launched in January 2006 and since has become an integral part of jazz education at high schools nationwide. A total of 20,000 toolkits were distributed to more than 12,000 qualified schools across the country, whose teachers shared the materials with an additional 266,000 teachers -- reaching nearly 8.4 million students to date. In addition, hundreds of visitors per month use the curriculum online. Schools using the materials are evenly divided between rural, urban, and suburban schools with the majority of teachers ordering the kit using the materials in English and history classes.

NEA Jazz in the Schools provides five flexible units, each of which can be taught in a day or expanded into a more comprehensive series of lessons.

• The five units of NEA Jazz in the Schools are: The Advent of Jazz: The Dawn of the Twentieth Century; The Jazz Age and the Swing Era; Bebop and Modernism; From the New Frontier to the New Millennium; and Jazz: An American Story.
• Each unit includes:
• An introductory video;
• A lesson essay;
• Links to a wealth of multimedia resources (musical excerpts, period photographs, and additional sources of information);
• A teacher’s guide with cross-curricular activities, assessment methods, and student activities.
• The curriculum’s multimedia content enhances the learning experience for tech-savvy students and provides teachers with varied tools for students’ participation.

NEA Jazz in the Schools was launched in January 2006 as an online resource and a toolkit and since has garnered much interest and many accolades. More than 18,100 teachers from nearly 12,100 schools have ordered the toolkit, passing the materials on to another 266,500 teachers and so reaching almost 8.3 million students. In addition, hundreds of visitors per month use the curriculum online.

Among the teacher comments are:

“My heartiest of compliments to you on a fantastic web site and unique learning tool for teachers and students alike!...It is colorful, creative, decent recording quality and the site even LOOKS LIKE JAZZ!!!”
-- Mary Jo Papich, Fine and Applied Arts Chair, Highland Park High School, Highland Park, IL

“I used it with my classes and the kids loved it!!”
-- Dawn Miller, Lindsay Community High School, San Diego, CA

NEA Jazz in the Schools is part of the NEA Jazz Masters initiative, a comprehensive program of jazz support that includes the NEA Jazz Masters Fellowships, NEA Jazz Masters Live, television and radio programming featuring NEA Jazz Masters, audio recordings, and publications.

For further information on the program, send an email to info@neajazzintheschools.org or call Katja von Schuttenbach, phone 202.682.5711.

May 2009

National Endowment for the Arts · an independent federal agency
1100 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20506

The NEA Jazz in the Schools Web site has been designated an Official Honoree by the 2009 Webby Awards.