OMA Program Selected for Harvard Arts Study
Harvard University announced October 3 that Opening Minds Through the Arts (OMA) has been selected from 121 applicants nationwide to participate as a case study site in the university’s year-long Project Zero research study on the arts in the classroom. 
The study, Qualities of Quality: Excellence in Arts Education and How to Achieve It, aims to better understand the critical elements of high quality arts teaching and learning. It will identify effective strategies for creating these experiences for school age youth in diverse settings. The study is funded by the Wallace Foundation.
“While there were many strong candidates for participation in this study, your application stood out for its compelling perspective and thoughtful articulation on the subject of quality in arts education,” wrote Project Zero’s principal investigator Steve Seidel in a letter to Dr. Joan Ashcraft, TUSD’s director of Fine & Performing Arts/OMA. “We believe your participation in this project promises to enrich our investigation.”
Dr. Ashcraft was elated when she learned the OMA Program was selected. “OMA is privileged to be a part of the Qualities of Quality study,” she said. “This is a great opportunity for TUSD, and we’re enthusiastically looking forward to what we’ll learn from the study as well as what we’ll contribute to it.”
Project Zero is an educational research group in the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University. A team of four principal investigators and several research assistants will work on the study over a 12-month period, and a 100-page report will be published in December 2007.
In an intensive two-day visit to the OMA Program on October 23-24, the Harvard Team examined all components of the OMA Program. 
The team visited schools and observed classrooms; interviewed principals, teachers, students, TUSD central administrators and a governing board member; participated in meetings with parents, OMA Foundation board members, the programs’ staff and professional development team and Tucson Federal Credit Union executives who sponsor two OMA schools. 
At the end of the site visit team members stated they were exceptionally impressed with what they found. If OMA chooses, they said it could become a national model for arts integration programs in schools within five years. They also noted that among other significant qualities they observed was “the amount of children’s and teachers’ laughter we heard in the classrooms and hallways.”

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