MARCOS CHRON
STAFF WRITER

The DREAM Project, a Cal State San Marcos-based arts-in-education program that has dramatically boosted reading scores at North County grade schools, will get national attention this week at a U.S. Department of Education conference in Washington, D.C.

The co-directors of DREAM (Developing Reading Education through Arts Methods), Merryl Goldberg and Brenda Hall, and arts researcher Patti Saraniero, will report on their success Wednesday before an audience of more than 200 national recipients of some 40 to 50 federal arts education grants. The DREAM team was the only grantee invited to present its results at this year’s conference.

Goldberg, chairperson of CSUSM’s Visual and Performing Arts Department, said it’s “pretty exciting” to be invited to speak, and a tribute to the quantified success of arts education.

Using DREAM visual art and theatrical activities, teachers in 10 North County school districts were able to raise third-grade reading scores by 87 points —- or from below basic to proficient levels —- in just one year (more than three times the gain of students who did not participate in DREAM).

“That’s a heck of a leap,” said Goldberg, who administered the DREAM project through the university’s 9-year-old Center ARTES program, in partnership with the North County Professional Development Federation. She said she hopes the astonishing results will convince school boards to revive arts funding.

“Our biggest challenge is overcoming indifference so people see the arts in a different light,” she said. “We have a whole body of research that shows that if you bring arts back into schools, attendance and test scores go up. But there’s such a bias, it negates believing in these wonderful scores.”