Education in art has been slipping for decades, and though 47 states have mandates for arts education, most children are not exposed to nearly as much art as they should be.
Due to financial and economic problems—as well as the ever-present impacts of No Child Left Behind, which authorized several federal education programs regarding elementary and secondary education—the number of schools providing comprehensive arts education has seen a steady decline over the years. From 1999 to 2009, the amount of public elementary schools offering drama dropped from 20 percent to 4 percent. California reports bleak statistics—student participation in music plummeted 46 percent from 1999 to 2004, while the number of music teachers fell 26.7 percent. Most of these declines happen in high-poverty districts, further widening the class gap in regards to education and available resources.
One of the most popular arguments against arts education is that some students simply don’t have the talent for it. However, this is a flawed and hypocritical statement. Every student, regardless of his or her talent for science, is required to take science classes in almost every year of statutory formal education. The same goes for math and literature. Though the arts are admittedly more subjective, the required skillsets necessary for rudimentary classes are ones that can be picked up with practice and experience.
The benefits of an arts education extend to other disciplines. A 2002 report and its 2010 follow-up by the Arts Education Partnership collected data from over 62 studies from 100 different researchers and found that students exposed to art of any type, from performance to visual, displayed higher proficiency in math, reading, writing, critical thinking, and verbal skill. Furthermore, art opens up new ways of looking at the world, brings together constructive communities by creating social bonds, and provides creative outlets for emotion.
Indeed, many school districts are adopting innovative arts programs, integrating the arts as a learning tool throughout their classes. Tom Horne, the state superintendent of public instruction in Arizona, says that schools that decrease their focus on arts in order to raise test scores are being counterproductive.
However, are all of these studies really necessary? Is learning art for its own sake not enough? Why does it have to serve an academic purpose? Ellen Winner and Lois Hetland argue that an arts education does not actually raise a student’s academic performance, but continue by saying it doesn’t matter anyway, because knowledge of—and experience with—the arts should be valued for its own merit. Giving art its value in relationship to other fields, they say, takes away its purpose.
Regardless of motive, arts education has proven to be all-around beneficial. Though the road to re-integrating it thoroughly across the country will be long and costly, it is an endeavor that must be fulfilled in order to allow students to achieve their academic, artistic, social, and cognitive potential.
“The kind of people society needs to make it move forward are thinking, inventive people who seek new ways and improvements,” says MaryAnn Kohl, an arts educator and author of numerous books about art in childhood. “Art is a way to encourage [this] process.”