What You Can Do to Bring the Arts to School Ann Svensen
The push from parents is on to include arts education in schools across the U.S. In a recent poll:
91 percent of Americans said that exposure to the arts is important for children;
90 percent of parents said that they want their kids to have more experience with the arts than they did as children, and
93 percent of Americans agreed that music is part of a well-rounded education.
"The Art of Teaching,"Learning Magazine, September/October 1996
What's the government doing about it?
President Clinton raised arts education from an extracurricular activity to a core subject in 1994 when he signed the Goals 2000: Educate America Act into law.
The National Standards separate the arts into four disciplines: dance, music, theatre, and the visual arts. The standards suggest that students should be able to do the following by the time they graduate high school:
Communicate at a basic level in all four disciplines;
Communicate competently in at least one art form;
Develop and present analyses of works of art;
Be acquainted with works of art from a variety of cultures and time periods, and
Relate various types of art knowledge within and across the arts disciplines.
The first step on a long road
Unfortunately, the inclusion of the Arts Education Standards in Goals 2000 is only the first step on a long road to bringing programs to local schools. The National Standards listed above are not mandated; they serve as a kind of blue print. States, school districts, and you will determine how and if arts education will enter local classrooms.
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The push from parents is on to include arts education in schools across the U.S. In a recent poll:
