Re-post from Americans for the Arts
On April 2, the U.S. Department of Education released a study entitled Arts Education in Public Elementary and Secondary Schools 1999-2000 and 2009-10. This study was previously published in 2002, prior to implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Arts education advocates are very pleased to finally see an update, even if a full decade later.
The report offers mixed results in support of arts education. According to the report, music and visual art are widely available in schools in some form in schools nationwide; however, dance and theater are far less available. U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan stated, “despite the importance of providing equal educational opportunities in the arts, today’s report shows we are falling well short of that goal.”
Despite being designated a “core academic subject” in NCLB and being included in mandated elementary school curriculum in 44 states, this survey demonstrates that access to arts education remains elusive to a tremendous number of students across the nation.
From the Department’s announcement of the study we learned that:
- 1.3 million of our nation’s public elementary school students receive no specific instruction in music, and nearly 4 million students receive no specific instruction in the visual arts.
- 800,000 public secondary school students do not receive music, and 11 percent of secondary schools do not provide the visual arts.
- Only 3 percent of elementary schools offer any specific dance instruction and only 4 percent offer any specific theater instruction. In secondary schools, the numbers improve somewhat as 12 percent offer dance and 45 percent offer theater.
Finally, this report found that the nation’s poorest students, the ones who could benefit the most from arts education, are receiving it the least. A decade ago, the data showed that 100 percent of high poverty schools offered music instruction, but currently, only 80 percent offer music instruction. The percentage offering visual arts, dance, and theater is even lower.
In his remarks, Secretary Duncan called the disparity between high-poverty and low-poverty schools “deeply disturbing” and “absolutely an equity issue and a civil rights issue.”
For further details on this federal study, read this post on ARTSblog, “Ten Years Later: A Puzzling Picture of Arts Education in America.”
Please join thousands of arts advocates across the country on April 17—as part of Arts Advocacy Day—for a virtual rally. We’re asking everyone to send messages to their members of Congress urging them to support the arts and arts education. Thank you for your support of the arts and arts education!
Founder & Editor at The Dance Journal
While not a dancer himself, Weisz’s love for the arts and dance started as a child growing up in New York City. With parents, who were strong supporters of the arts and part of a community with an incredible array of notable artists in music, dance, theater, and fine arts, Weisz’s access and affinity for the performing arts took root. Upon attending college in Philadelphia at the University of Pennsylvania in the mid-’70s, Weisz started performing as a puppeteer, magician, juggler, and fire eater as a means of supplementing his income. This soon grew into what became Rainbow Promotions Inc., one of the largest entertainment and special events producers in the region. It was here that he began to promote and book dance for major events throughout the city. Many of the dancers he worked within the early days of his company are now major choreographers in Philadelphia. At the same time, Weisz’s interest in computers and the early developments of what is now known as the Internet led him to also start another company, Delaware Valley On Line, which became one of the first regional ISPs. It was this combination of event production, internet development, and event marketing that led him to examine the use of the internet as a means to promote the arts. Dance continued to be a major interest for Weisz and in 2005 he founded PhiladelphiaDANCE.org as a major online resource to promote dance in the city. It was soon after that the Dance Journal was also founded as a way to provide an outlet for writing on a range of topics that encompass the ever-growing and emerging dance community in the region. Weisz continues to run both the non-profit PhiladelphiaDANCE and The Dance Journal on purely a voluntary basis with no income derived from any of his projects. He is also the Director of Graffito Works, an international platform for dancers and performing artists in Europe that creates site specific. More recently, Weisz has expanded his creative endeavors into the realm of photography through the establishment of ArtImagined.photo.
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