policy and advocacy

Issue Brief: Arts Education Through the U.S. Department of Education

Helping Children Succeed in School, Work, and Life

ACTION NEEDED
We urge Congress to:

Appropriate $53 million for the Arts in Education programs in the FY08 Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill.
Require the U.S. Department of Education to conduct much-needed research on the status of arts education in America’s public schools, including the Fast Response Statistical Survey and the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

Table: Arts in Education Annual Appropriations, FY01 to Present (in millions of dollars)

Fiscal Year
01

02

03

04

05

06

07

Appropriation
28.0

30.0

33.8

35.1

35.6

35.3*

35.3

Notes: Figures above are not adjusted for inflation. Source: Americans for the Arts. *The House and Senate approved $35.6 million in FY2006, but the funding was subsequently reduced due to a 1 percent across-the-board rescission.

TALKING POINTS

With increased funding, the Arts in Education programs will support newly emerging models in high-poverty schools that improve arts learning, and findings from model projects may be more widely disseminated. The Model Development and Dissemination program has funded a total of 105 projects, identifying models of excellence in arts education that impact schools and communities nationwide. The Professional Development grants program has supported 56 projects that serve as national models for effective arts education professional development. Increased Arts in Education funds will provide unique federal support for:

Model Development and Dissemination projects that strengthen student learning through standards-based arts education and integration of arts instruction into other subject areas.
Professional Development for Arts Educators grants, identifying innovative models that improve instruction for arts specialists and classroom teachers.
Evaluation and National Dissemination, multiplying the impact of this federal investment. State and local education agencies can adapt these models to provide rigorous arts instruction for all students.
Ongoing national arts education initiatives of The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and the efforts of VSA arts to ensure the participation of people with disabilities in arts programming in schools and communities.

Projects funded through the Arts in Education programs are being successfully implemented as models in communities beyond the original grant recipient.

An arts integration project in Tucson, Arizona supported by a Model Development grant, Opening Minds through the Arts, influenced the Arizona Department of Education to take the program to scale state wide using federal Title I and Title V education funds.
A Professional Development grant to the Stockton, California Unified School District, a large urban district that serves low-income families, supported an innovative project designed to provide comprehensive and sequential visual and performing arts training and experiences for both district and classroom-level educators and also enrich the educational experiences of students. The project has served as a resource for surrounding school districts and has been featured in state-wide education conferences.

Funding to VSA arts and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts supports national networks that ensure the inclusion of students with disabilities and other underserved populations. These networks provide for the expansion of model programs in all 50 states involving over 16 million students. National initiatives include: educational programs from early childhood through grade 12, strategies to include students with disabilities, professional development for teachers and administrators, and documentation of the social and academic progress from learning in an arts-rich environment.
The nation does not have comprehensive, reliable information about student access to arts instruction or student performance in the arts. The Fast Response Statistical Survey (FRSS) report Arts in Education in Public Elementary and Secondary Schools is the only research report produced by the U.S. Department of Education on the status of how arts education is delivered in America’s public schools. The last report was for the 1999-2000 school year, and the next round of data collection for an updated report is long overdue. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also known as the national arts “report card,” - provides critical information about the arts skills and knowledge of our nation’s students. The next NAEP is scheduled to be administered in 2008, and must stay on track.
Congress has repeatedly urged the Department of Education to implement the Fast Response Survey in the arts to no avail. In report language accompanying recent education funding bills, Congress has urged the U.S. Department of Education to take action on the nation’s arts education research needs. Top House and Senate education leaders have appealed directly to the U.S. Secretary of Education to account for this research gap.
The U.S. Department must include the arts in all research and data collection regarding the "core academic subjects." In public statements, U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings has said, “Art, dance, music, and theater are as much a part of education as reading, math, and science.” And yet, the Department has told Congress that among the “many tough choices” made in the area of research, the arts survey did not rate as a priority. It is time for the arts to be included in the Department of Education’s research regarding subject-specific data.

BACKGROUND
Congress has a record of supporting the Arts in Education programs, despite their elimination in the administration’s budget proposal and the U.S. House of Representatives bill. Following strong support from the Senate and calls for continued funding by numerous members of the House, Congress has steadily funded the Arts in Education programs each year, currently providing $35.3 million.

In a March 16, 2006 letter, authored by Reps. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Christopher Shays (R-CT), and Louise Slaughter (D-NY), as well as former Reps. Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) and James Leach (R-IA), 136 members of the U.S. House of Representatives signed their names in support of increasing Arts in Education funding to $53 million. Sens. Thad Cochran (R-MS), Tom Harkin (D-IA), Edward Kennedy (D-MA), and Arlen Specter (R-PA) have led efforts in the Senate to sustain and increase Arts in Education funding.

Meaningful research is needed to determine the status of dance, music, theatre, and visual arts education. The last FRSS dedicated to the arts was Arts Education in Public Elementary and Secondary Schools: 1999-2000. The FRSS reports on the status and trends of how arts education is delivered in public schools.

In 1997, the NAEP was administered to approximately 6,480 students in grade 8 in the nation, assessing 268 schools. The NAEP is designed to measure students' knowledge and skills in dance, music, theatre, and visual arts.

Both of these quantitative studies are essential to studying and improving access to the arts as a core academic subject.