U.S. Under Secretary of Education to Speak at the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards Exhibit Opening at Education Department Headquarters

U.S. Under Secretary of Education Martha Kanter will give remarks at the opening of an exhibit of artworks by students who have won 2012 Scholastic Art Awards, sponsored by the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers, at 11 a.m., Friday, Oct. 12, at the U.S. Department of Education headquarters building in Washington, D.C. The opening and ribbon-cutting ceremony will honor the works of 54 artists from among the 2012 winners of the 90-year-old nationwide Scholastic Art and Writing Awards competition.

Kanter will be joined by Jim Shelton, assistant deputy secretary for innovation and improvement, along with more than 45 students, 20 art and writing teachers and 150 other guests from the education and art worlds. Two workshops will take place before the opening. The first, for former educators now employed with the Department, will focus on how the art teachers of the Scholastic award winners brought their students to a high level of development. The second, for students, will focus on game design and poetry.

Also featured will be Luisa Banchoff, the first-ever National Student Poet from the southeast region of the United States, who recently was selected by the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities (PCAH), the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers. Banchoff is a senior at Washington-Lee High School in Arlington, Va., and will read from her works at the ceremony.

Other speakers at the event are Rachel Goslins, executive director of PCAH; Deborah Reeve, executive director of the National Art Education Association; and Virginia McEnerney, executive director of the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers, which holds the annual competition.