In education, the arts are important for all children, not just those with special talent.

Art is for everybody

The arts are crucial to how children learn. Teachers know that knowledge sticks more easily when it is beautiful, or compelling, or funny. The comedian Steven Wright made the point memorably: "Why is the alphabet in that order? Is it because of that song?" It's a good joke with a surprising kernel of truth — and the song is global.

Knowledge sticks more easily when it is beautiful, or compelling, or funny.

Art is inherently creative. Teachers are constantly finding new ways to deploy creativity 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 things including the quadratic formula.

Growing evidence suggests a connection between participation in Visual and Performing Art (VAPA) programs and academic results. Arts education can improve students’ ability to communicate effectively. Experiences in music or other performance can teach the importance of teamwork and help students develop self-confidence. Other findings point to a connection between arts programs and social-emotional development.

Does California neglect arts education?

For many years, California's schools had among the weakest art education programs in America. It will take time to reverse the damage.

California voters demanded change in 2022

This long-lasting weakness has to be understood partly as a matter of local choices. Each school board in California has a lot of independent power to decide how their schools deploy time and resources. Districts and unions negotiate contracts and set budgets together. In the years before 2022, districts could have hired arts educators. They could have invested class time and school space toward the arts. But most didn't. Instead, they focused on other priorities.

The Arts and Music in Schools Act, a voter initiative, took the issue off the local negotiating table by making a certain level of spending on arts education mandatory and permanent for the whole state. The popular measure sets aside about a billion dollars per year (roughly $170 per student in 2023) that must be used specifically to pay art teachers (more details below).

The future for arts education seems relatively bright in California, given the precedent created by the initiative. But it's important to understand the history of the issue — both for its own sake and as a case study in advocacy.

How did advocates protect arts education in California?

California law requires arts instruction in grades 1-6 and arts courses in grades 7-12. This isn't new, but for a very long time districts simply ignored the requirement.

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, perhaps hoping their school community would rally to the cause and raise extra money. Rather than hiring tenured teachers, some districts preferred to provide arts experiences through third-party contracts that they could easily eliminate or downsize if funding for education decreased.

Over time, the overall effect was easy to predict: California fell dramatically behind other states in providing arts education opportunities for students.

Data helped win the argument

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. 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.

Educational standards for arts education

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. Access to arts education was wildly inequitable.

Because the arts data system extended to the school level, it was easy to document gaps. 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 arts 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 patterns often called achievement gaps could be seen as art gaps, too.

The data systems developed to document art gaps are still in operation as of this writing. If you are making a case for arts education in your school or district, start by exploring the data already collected. (As of early 2024, the Project had data for 2021-22 showing a statewide ratio of 631 students per arts educator, with a lot of variability.)

How does California's arts funding work?

The initiative that guarantees funding for arts education in California was cleverly constructed. It didn't raise taxes. 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 requirements about how the money must be used. The funding supplements other money that the state is constitutionally required to provide to public schools.

As mentioned above, districts have the power to spend additional money on arts education. The guaranteed funding is meant to serve as a floor, not a ceiling.

More for arts education, maybe?

The funding included in the initiative isn't meant to serve as a ceiling for arts education. Additional billions were allocated in the post-pandemic boom, but then pulled back as the market swooned. The arts funding initiative provided protection for a core amount of arts spending that seems likely to be durable. (See our blog post on the 2024-25 budget.)

How arts education promotes equity

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."

The science and junk science of arts education

Creativity is sometimes misrepresented as right brain thinking. As science, this is now known to be junk, but for years people thought it was true, and it was taught in education schools. The idea that it's a good idea to incorporate creativity into learning is sound.

The next lesson examines another part of the school experience that many students find enjoyable: physical education.

This lesson was last updated in January 2024.