Americans Agree the Arts Are Vital to Providing a Well Rounded Education

A May, 2001 survey found that 91% of American adults agree that the arts are vital to providing a well-rounded education for children. The survey, conducted by Americans for the Arts, found that there is tremendous support for the arts and a broad understanding of the value an arts education provides to children. 95% of those surveyed agree that the arts teach intangibles like creativity, self-expression and individualism — important tools for preparing children for the future.

Parents agree that schools are responsible for ensuring that children learn about and experience a variety of art forms; otherwise, there is no guarantee that children will receive any sort of arts education. Nine out of ten respondents (89%) believe that arts education is important enough that schools should find the money to ensure inclusion in the curriculum.

According to a 1993 report: “The Power of the Arts to Transform Education”, schools with strong arts programs regularly incur such benefits as:

• Intensified student motivation to learn
• Better attendance among students
• Increased graduation rates
• Improved multicultural understanding
• Renewed and invigorated faculty
• More highly engaged students (which traditional approaches fail to inspire)
• Development of a higher order of thinking skills, creativity, and problem-solving ability
• Greater community participation and support

“The arts teach young people how to learn by giving them the first step: the desire to learn.”

“The American economy is shifting from a manufacturing-driven engine to a services-driven enterprise. If young Americans are to succeed and to contribute to what Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan describes as our ‘economy of ideas,’ they will need an education that develops imaginative, flexible, and tough-minded thinking. The arts powerfully nurture the ability to think in this manner.”
- Richard Riley, Secretary, Department of Education

“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 are ndispensable to education reform. The very idea that we can change our schools an make them more effective centers of learning without educating children in the arts is simply false…”
- The Arts and Education: Partners in Achieving Our National Goals

The No Child Left Behind Act’s definition of core academic subjects includes the arts. In this respect, the arts were given equal billing with reading, math, science, and other disciplines. And this definition could lead to a huge improvement in national education policy. This means that whenever federal education programs (such as teacher training, school reform, and technology programs) are targeted to “core academic subjects,” the arts may be eligible to receive funds. Such a broad recognition of the arts has never before been included in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. It’s the Law.

The definition of core subjects in the new law is located in Title IX, Part A, Section 9101 (1)(D)(11), Definitions. The definition of core academic subjects is included in the glossary of the bill, which tells local and state education decision makers how to interpret the concepts used throughout the Act. However, many decision makers may not be aware that the arts are identified as a core subject in the Act and, as a result, may be unaware that many types of federal education funds may be used for arts education.

The National Art Education Association provides numerous resources specifically related to key provisions of the NCLB Act including, “highly-qualified teachers, challenging teaching skills, student achievement standards,” and others. Here is how the definition reads: (11) CORE ACADEMIC SUBJECTS- The term ‘core academic subjects’ means English, reading or language arts, mathematics, science, foreign languages, civics and government, economics, arts, history, and geography. (Source: National Art Education Association)