New Study Reveals No Child Left Behind Leaves Behind the Arts

I'm posting this article by Miller-McCune Research in half it's original form. It actually highlights two different studies on two separate topics. We'll start with the obvious -- just about any teacher or principal in the US has already experienced the devaluation of the arts that the researcher confirms. As my daughter's 4th grade teacher so eloquently stated: "I don't teach what isn't tested."

Arts Education Promotes Emotional Intelligence

By: Tom Jacobs Print

Arts education, which tends to be something of an afterthought in many American school districts, is facing an even tougher time than usual. Twin threats — budget cuts necessitated by dwindling tax revenues and the push to focus on math and reading skills as measured on standardized tests — have left music and art classes in a particularly vulnerable state. In December, for example, the Los Angeles Unified School District proposed eliminating its 350 elementary school arts specialists over the next two years.

What is being lost — and what, if anything, can be done about this trend — is addressed in two scholarly papers published in the new issue of the Arts Education Policy Review. One notes students whose education is dominated by rote learning will not be prepared for "the jobs of tomorrow," while the other explores the value of the arts in helping kids understand their emotions.

In "No Child Left Behind and Fine Arts Classes," Tina Beveridge of Lower Columbia College in Longview, Wash., details the obvious and subtle ways a test-centric approach to education devalues arts instruction. (Obvious: School districts being judged on student test scores have little incentive to fund such programs. Subtle: The courses that remain are often classified as "fun," which conveys the unintentional message "the arts do not require skill, knowledge, commitment or work.")

Beveridge finds considerable irony in the fact that the original stated goal of the 2001 federal No Child Left Behind Act, which mandated standardized testing, "was to close the achievement gap in education." She argues that by narrowing the focus of education to a few testable topics, it ends up doing just the opposite.

"If we marginalize all non-tested subjects, we create a system in which only the affluent members of our society have access to the most comprehensive and well-rounded educations, which widens the achievement gap rather than closes it," she writes.

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To read the second research findings regarding emotional intelligence as taught through the arts continue the article:

http://miller-mccune.com/news/arts-education-promotes-emotional-intelligence-1720.print