Today kicks off National Arts in Education week. It’s an initiative by the group Americans for the Arts, and the week itself was first officially designated as a thing by Congress in 2010. Various arts organizations and supporters throughout the country will be working this week to highlight the benefits of, and the need for, the arts in education. The hope is that by bringing this topic to public attention, “elected officials and educational decision-makers nationwide can find ways to support equitable arts access for students of all backgrounds.” It’s sad to say, but what state you live in may influence if your lawmakers even approach the topic.
For decades, the National Endowment for the Arts has done periodic surveys about art in schools, and it explains that there have been debates about the value of arts education for almost as long as there have been public schools. Music, for example, was accepted into the curriculum of the first public schools under the rationale that it would improve singing in church services. Maybe that would fly in some places today. Back in 1836, one report said that schools should include music instruction because it promoted student progress in other subjects.
In 1930, about 20% of American public-school students received some level of arts education. By 1972, half of American children were doing so and the trend was rising upward. It peaked in the early 1980s but then began to drop, and it’s been dropping ever since. The percentage of 18-year-olds who received any arts education in childhood fell from just under 65% in 1982 to 49.5% in 2008. More specifically, music declined from 53% of students in 1982, to 36.9% in 2008. Visual arts went from 36% to 25%. Creative writing, from 21% to 12%.
A few years ago, the Brookings Institute did a new study on the benefits of art in education. It found that “increases in arts learning positively and significantly affect students’ school engagement, college aspirations, and their inclinations to draw upon works of art as a means for empathizing with others.” Students who take art classes in school are more likely to say that their schoolwork is enjoyable, that it helps them think about things in new ways, and that they’re more interested in school in general.
People wonder why schools are in the condition that they are. Maybe part of the reason is that arts and creativity have been playing a smaller and smaller role in them.
