Carol Fineberg's been there, she's advocated for arts reform and won, and now she's going to show you how to go about infusing your classroom with the power of the arts. With forty years of experience in education reform, Fineberg has witnessed and evaluated scores of arts and arts-in-education programs, and her experiences have taught her that the arts are often a bellwether for the success or failure of school-improvement initiatives.In "Creating Islands of Excellence," Fineberg underscores how the integration of arts-based instruction can create breathtaking educational moments in and out of the classroom as she guides teachers, administrators, and curriculum developers around the problems that can derail well-intended reform efforts. Full of real-world wisdom and chalk-dust-on-the-sleeve practicality, "Creating Islands of Excellence" offers hard-won advice on: creating local arts-in-education reform initiatives establishing arts partnerships, alliances, and coalitions with individuals, community groups, arts organizations, and federal and state agencies appropriating the arts into the curriculum at the elementary, middle, and secondary levels bringing professional artists into your school and working closely with them creating and evaluating school conditions that foster the arts using the arts as a tool for instruction AND assessment."Creating Islands of Excellence" is a book for any education professional interested in expanding the possibilities of instruction by integrating creative expression and cultural inquiry into the day-to-day business of teaching and learning.