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In education, the arts are important not just for students with artistic talent. Arts education is for all children.
The arts are more than just what children learn but also how children learn. Teachers know that knowledge sticks more easily when it is beautiful, or compelling, or funny. (Comedian Steven Wright quipped "Why is the alphabet in that order? Is it because of that song?" To an extent, the answer is yes, and the song is global.
Knowledge sticks more easily when it is beautiful, or compelling, or funny.
There is a strong relationship between arts education and the skills that students use to master core subjects like reading, writing, and mathematics. Art is inherently creative. Teachers find ways to use art as part of the learning process, integrating arts into learning lots of things, like US history, and science. The arts can help students understand math, and memorize the quadratic formula.
Arts education can improve students’ ability to communicate effectively. It can teach the importance of teamwork and develop self-confidence through experiences in music or other performance. Growing evidence suggests a connection between participation in art programs and academic results. Additional findings point to a connection between arts programs and social-emotional development.
For many years, California's commitment to arts education was among the weakest in America.
California voters demanded change in 2022
As this lesson will explain, California's voters demanded change in 2022, so the future for arts education is relatively bright. But it's important to understand the history of the issue.
California requires arts instruction in grades 1-6 and arts courses in grades 7-12. This isn't new, but for a very long time the requirements were widely ignored. Teachers are busy, the arts were widely misunderstood as a distraction, or a low-value use of academic time. What changed in 2022 is the specific commitment of funds to make it a reality.
California's main policy for how funds flow from the state to the classroom is the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), which is explained in Ed100 Lesson 8.5. Under LCFF, school districts have a lot of power to set local priorities and make local choices about how to use funds. Until 2023, it was up to each individual school district to decide whether and how to spend funds on arts education. In practice, it was essentially optional.
Some districts chose to fund arts, music and athletics as part of their core budget. Some hired tenured teachers for these purposes. But many districts didn't. They reserved little or no core funding for the arts, instead looking to their school community to raise extra money, or simply ignoring the subject altogether. Some districts provided arts programs through third-party contracts that they could easily eliminate or downsize if funding for education decreased.
Over decades, the overall effect was easy to predice: California fell dramatically behind other states in providing arts education opportunities for students.
The arts show up in classrooms in two ways: Integrated into lessons, and taught as distinct art disciplines: visual arts, music, dance, the theater arts, criticism, history, and aesthetics.
The federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), America's main education law, defines the arts as a part of a well-rounded education, but leaves the details to the states. In practice, test scores in reading, writing and math are generally regarded as the indispensible core evidence of success in education. Arts education is frequently an afterthought.
Students in California receive much less instruction in visual arts and music than students do in other states.
Advocates for the arts realized decades ago that it's hard to make a case for investing in the arts without data. The simplest quantifiable evidence was the declining amount of time that schools committed to arts education.
As schools focused on math and English, time spent on arts instruction measurably declined.
In California, participation in music classes dropped 46% from 1999 through 2004. During the recession that began in 2008, many schools nearly eliminated arts education from their curriculum, continuing a decades-long decline. A statewide study of arts education in California in 2007 indicated that 89% of K-12 schools did not offer even a single standards-based course of study in the visual arts, music, theater, and dance.
California could ill afford this decline. In 2007, a study of instructional hours per year for music and visual arts in elementary schools documented that California children were spending less time on the arts than children nationally back in 1999-2000.
Unfortunately, followup surveys showed little improvement, suggesting that once art programs disappear from a school they can be difficult to bring back.
Art program advocates warned that the declining emphasis on arts education was creating a generation of teachers and parents with a narrow view of the arts in education. A 2015 report, A Blueprint for Creative Schools, outlined strategies to reverse the trend, making the arts a core part of education for all students.
In 2017, California adopted educational standards for arts education (finalized in 2019) to clarify the kinds of instruction and experiences that should be available to students. As the standards were being developed, advocates for arts education gathered data to make the case for change. They found that only a small percentage of students were receiving any arts education at all, and that access to arts education was wildly inequitable.
Because the data system extends to the school level, it was easy to document the difference in the education experience of children: classes in the arts tended to be most available to students in more-affluent communities. The pre-pandemic 2019 study showed that over half of students in grades six and up weren't enrolled in any art study at all. Participation in arts followed a familiar pattern: schools where more families are poor were far less likely to provide students with access to education in the arts. The test patterns often called achievement gaps could be seen as art gaps, too.
The Arts Education Data Project collects data about arts in the curriculum of each school in California, and (suitably for an art-focused organization) presents its school-by-school findings visually. If you are making a case for arts education in your school or district, start by exploring the data already collected.
In 2022, California voters overwhelmingly passed the largest public school investment in arts education in the nation.
The measure (Proposition 28 - 2022) didn't raise taxes for arts education. Instead, it re-prioritized the funding system. Under this measure, California sets aside about $1 billion each year from the state general fund, directing it to school districts with the requirement that the money must be used for arts education. This funding supplements other money that the state is constitutionally required to provides to public schools. Most of the money is directed to pay for instructional time.
How Proposition 28 (2022) funds arts education |
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Arts education funding is protected |
Each year, all PK-12 public schools get an additional 1 percent of the required state and local funding that was received the year before. In rough terms, this comes to about $1 billion — in the neighborhood of $170 per student. (2022 estimate) This is above the constitutionally required amount of funding for public schools and community colleges under Proposition 98. The legislature can reduce this funding when it provides less than the constitutionally required funding for education. The reduction in funding for arts education can't be more than the percentage reduction in total funding to public schools and community colleges. |
Arts funding is mostly based on enrollment. |
Of the arts funding to PreK-12 public schools under this measure, 70% is allocated to districts on the basis of enrollment. The other 30% is based on schools' share of low-income students enrolled statewide. Local governing boards may use up to 1 percent of this funding for administrative expenses. |
Funding must be used primarily to hire arts staff. |
At least 80 percent of the additional funding for arts under this measure must be used to hire staff. (School districts and charter schools with fewer than 500 students are exempt from this requirement. Larger districts can apply for waivers.) Districts must certify that money for arts education was spent in addition to existing funding for this purpose. Funding can be used for dance, media arts, music, theater, and various types of visual arts (including photography, craft arts, computer coding, and graphic design). Districts have three years to spend the funds they receive each year for arts on a use-it-or-lose-it basis. The state department of education may reallocate unspent funds to all schools in the following year. |
Principals determine how funds are spent. |
The principal of a school site (or the program director of a preschool) develops a plan for spending the funding. |
Annual data reporting is required. |
Local governing boards must certify each year that funding intended for arts education was spent for that purpose. They must post on their website a report of how funds were spent, including type of arts education programs, number of staff employed, number of students served, and the number of school sites providing arts education with the funding received. This report must also be submitted to the state department of education (CDE) and made public on the department’s website. |
In the post-pandemic budget boom of 2022-23, the California legislature set aside a substantial amount of state money — $3.5 billion — in the Arts, Music, and Instructional Materials Discretionary Block Grant for use through 2025-26. The language of the grant is slippery, and permits a wide variety of uses besides the arts, such as retirement, health care costs and costs related to COVID 19.
Increasing arts in schools helps close achievement gaps because it tends to increase students' level of engagement in their education.
A study of graduation rates in New York City found that increasing access to arts instruction helped turn around struggling schools and keep students engaged.
A set of multi-year studies using data from the Department of Labor and the Department of Education corroborate the connection between arts education and academic achievement, showing a "relationship between arts engagement and positive academic and social outcomes in children and young adults of low socioeconomic status (SES)."
As with all education, arts education tends to work better in person. During the pandemic, teachers and parents scrambled for ways to sustain arts education at a distance, somehow. The internet exploded with ideas, partly to help cooped-up parents from detonating out of frustration. Some standout sites are here and here.
Creativity is sometimes misrepresented as right brain thinking. As science, this is junk, but for many years it was taught in education schools. The idea that it's a good idea to incorporate creativity into learning is sound.
Questions to ask about arts education in your school: |
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Does your school and district have a quality arts program, including an arts education master plan? The Strategic Arts Education Planning Guide is a useful starting place. |
Are the arts included in professional development for Common Core State Standards and Next Generation Science Standards? (Are the arts picking up STEAM?) |
Are the arts included in your district’s Local Control and Accountability Plan? Some strategies: (LCFF Toolkit, California Alliance for Arts Education) |
Is your district using LCFF funds to support arts education for low-income students, English-Language Learners and foster youth? See: Arts and Achievement for Low Income Students |
Does your school district use its Title I money to support arts education? Title1arts.org offers examples. |
Are the arts used to engage parents? The National PTA’s Arts Education with a Stronger Family-School Partnership is a great resource. |
The next lesson examines another part of the school experience that many students find enjoyable: physical education.
Updated July 2017
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Carol Kocivar December 6, 2023 at 3:06 pm
Create CA and the Arts Education Data Project
Find the number of Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) arts education teachers by school level, district, county, and statewide.
https://createca.org/california-arts-education-data-project/
Carol Kocivar January 9, 2023 at 5:06 pm
Employing a randomized controlled trial with 42 elementary and middle schools in Houston, Texas, we find that randomly assigning arts educational opportunities reduces disciplinary infractions, improves writing achievement, and increases students’ emotional empathy.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pam.22449?utm_source=The+Hechinger+Report&utm_campaign=279e06a5b6-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2022_12_19_05_30&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-279e06a5b6-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D
Jeff Camp - Founder December 9, 2022 at 2:34 pm
Carol Kocivar August 3, 2022 at 8:28 pm
The state 2022-23 Budget provides $3.6 billion one-time funds that can be used for arts and music programs, obtaining standards-aligned professional development, acquiring instructional materials, developing diverse book collections, operational costs, and expenses related to the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Carol Kocivar June 5, 2022 at 4:09 pm
https://lao.ca.gov/handouts/education/2022/Initiative-Statute-Provides-Additional-Funding-for-Arts-and-Music-Education-in-Public-Schools-060122.pdf
Carol Kocivar May 23, 2022 at 11:25 pm
Mateo Meza June 28, 2021 at 10:08 pm
Anna Meza February 8, 2021 at 10:34 am
Carol Kocivar February 28, 2021 at 8:19 pm
Carol Kocivar February 8, 2021 at 10:04 am
While California requires arts instruction in grades 1-6 and arts courses in grades 7-12, it does not require schools to commit any particular level of funding for arts education.
Schools are required to provide arts 1-6 and 7-12.
In the early grades it is instruction and in the older grades it is courses.
Roxanne Crawford June 10, 2020 at 8:56 pm
Jamie Kiffel-Alcheh November 13, 2019 at 6:47 am
Jamie Kiffel-Alcheh November 13, 2019 at 6:44 am
Caroline May 13, 2019 at 2:26 pm
Brenda Etterbeek May 9, 2019 at 1:26 pm
Caroline May 15, 2019 at 2:07 pm
Carol Kocivar November 4, 2017 at 10:16 am
Lisette October 3, 2017 at 4:45 pm
Carol Kocivar September 19, 2017 at 11:31 am
or Spanish:
http://downloads.capta.org/smarts/JobDescriptionforArtsEducationChairman_Spanish.pdf
Carol Kocivar July 1, 2017 at 5:46 pm
https://www.psarts.org/TO-GO/
Jeff Camp March 20, 2017 at 4:37 pm
Carol Kocivar February 20, 2017 at 10:46 am
PTA's School Smarts program helps parents make the connection between arts and learning. Here are five videos you can use at your parent meeting:
- Family Values Art Project
- Pinwheel Art Project
- Mask Art Project
- Hat Art Project
- Quilt Art Project
Carol Kocivar October 27, 2016 at 3:16 pm
The newly launched California Arts Education Data Project now analyzes and reports school-level data on arts education courses and grades 6 through 12 enrollment. You can review school-level, district, county and statewide data on their interactive dashboard.
http://www.createca.dreamhosters.com/artsed-dataproject/
Key Findings 2014-2015
* Thirty-eight percent of all students participated in arts education courses. This represents more than 1.2 million students.
* In 2015, 26% of students had access to one or more arts discipline in schools. This represents 12% of schools offering all four arts disciplines. There were nearly 2.3 million students who did not have access to all four arts disciplines.
Caroline August 15, 2019 at 6:04 pm
Albert Stroberg May 1, 2016 at 8:12 pm
How do kids do 10 years later?
Carol Kocivar April 23, 2016 at 4:17 pm
Carnegie Hall commissioned a new research paper “Why Making Music Matters."
"The more we learn, the clearer it becomes that live music can play a powerful role in ...development from the very start."
Find out more...
http://www.carnegiehall.org/BlogPost.aspx?id=4295019679&utm_source=mail2&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=wmi-23579&utm_content=wmiblast-021216&sourceCode=23579
Jeff Camp - Founder November 8, 2015 at 4:18 pm
shadowzwench April 27, 2015 at 12:33 pm
Carol Kocivar - Ed100 February 17, 2015 at 3:48 pm
The California Alliance for Arts Education takes a look at how five districts invested in arts education in their 2014 LCAPs to achieve a variety of outcomes, including student engagement, a broad course of study and closing the achievement gap between English Language Learners and other students.
Here is the link:
http://www.artsed411.org/files/5%20Examples%20of%20Arts%20Ed%20in%20District%20LCAP%20012815.pdf
Carol Kocivar - Ed100 February 2, 2015 at 12:44 pm
State Schools Chief Tom Torlakson’s Arts Education Task Force Submits Recommendations to Restore the Arts to California Classrooms. You can find " A Blueprint for Creative Schools" here: http://createca.net/?p=272