Applauding the Arts | Arts Education

"The arts … are fundamental to what it means to be an educated person. To lack an education in the arts is to be profoundly disconnected from our history, from beauty, from other cultures, and from other forms of expression."

-The Arts and Education:
Partners in Achieving Our National
Education Goals

Story by Suzie Boss, Photo by Judy Blakenship.

What a difference a decade makes.

In 1988, Toward Civilization, a report by the National Endowment for the Arts, warns that the arts are in "triple jeopardy" in American schools: "They are not viewed as serious; knowledge itself is not viewed as a prime educational objective; and those who determine school curricula do not agree on what arts education is."

In 1998, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton hosts a White House special event, Recognizing the Power of the Arts in Education, and the national Arts Report Card is published, asserting: "As a means of encountering the world around us, the arts offer a unique combination of intellectual, emotional, imaginative, and physical experiences. The arts as a means of expression are especially important in the context of current educational reform."

Local school districts that spent the 1980s dismantling or downsizing their arts programs in favor of more "rigorous" academic programming may be amazed to hear the arts applauded as a key to school reform. Yet as we head into the next century, business leaders, school reformers, researchers, and policymakers are joining in chorus to sing the praises of the arts. Far from being portrayed as an expensive frill, an education in the arts is increasingly viewed as essential to the curriculum-valued for its own sake, as a means of enhancing learning in other areas, and as a tool to develop future workplace skills.

Arts advocates have always known that students who engage in visual and performing arts benefit in profound, lasting ways. Long after the paint dries, the strings grow still, or the stage lights dim, students who experience the arts firsthand carry within them lessons about the joy of creativity, the pursuit of excellence, and the cultural heritage we all share as humans. But to explain the latest surge of interest in the arts as a force to uplift education, it's worth looking at the "harder" evidence that has been making its way into the popular press, academic journals, and a recent flurry of national reports. A few highlights:

In 1995 College Board testing, students who have studied the arts for at least four years score 59 points higher on the verbal portion of the SAT, and 44 points higher on math, than students with no experience or coursework in the arts

According to a 1997 report from the Department of Education, "Children naturally sing, dance, draw, and role-play in an effort to understand the world around them and communicate their thoughts about it. A growing body of evidence demonstrates that when their caretakers engage them in these activities early in life on a regular basis, they are helping to wire the children's brains for successful learning."

In studies at University of California at Irvine, IQ scores go up among college students who listen to classical recordings immediately before testing-a phenomenon nicknamed "The Mozart Effect"

Arts education programs are related to safer and more orderly school environments (Safe Havens)

Schools with strong arts programs report better attendance, increased graduation rates, improved multicultural understanding, greater community support, invigorated faculty, and the development of higher-order thinking skills, creativity, and problem-solving ability among students (The Power of the Arts to Transform Education)

The arts serve students with special needs, including those who are in danger of falling through the cracks of the educational system (American Canvas), and allow success "for people who have been defined as failures" (Art Works!)

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