About a year ago, I had the pleasure of meeting with two staff members of the Goverment Accounting Office (GAO) and some of my own staff and board to discuss the the impact of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLBA) on access to arts education.
The GAO has released a report: click here to read Access to Arts Education, February 2009, GAO 09-286
The highlights can be found by clicking here.
This report was conducted per the request of Congress, which asked the GAO:
1. has the amount of instruction time for arts education changed and, of so, have certain groups been more affected than others,
2. to what extent have state agencies’ requirements and funding for arts education changed since NCLBA.
3. what are school officials in selected districts doing to provide arts education since NCLBA and what challenges do they face in doing so,
4. what is known about the effect of arts education in improving student outcomes?
GAO analyzed data from the U.S. Department of Education, surveyed 50 state arts officials, interviewed officials in eight school districts, and reviewed existing research.
The main conclusions:
1. Since NCLBA District and School Principals have used several strategies to provide arts education; however, some struggled with decreased budgets and competing demands on instruction time.
2.Officials report that when trade-offs involving funding or instruction time for arts education had to be made, the school principal made the decision.
3. Overall research on the association between arts education and student outcomes is inconclusive.
4. Schools in need of improvements as categorized under NCLBA, which include a higher percentage of low income and minority students were more likely to reduce instructional time in the arts.
There is a lot here and I haven’t had the time to go through this. The GAO’s focus here was fairly limited, as determined by the charge from congress. GAO is recommending that further study be done to examine more closely the reasons behind decreased instructional time when and where it has occurred.
Finally, for the moment, let’s keep in mind that this report, for all intents and purposes, is based upon data before the current economic crises.
More to come…
Richard, from my perspective the key answer here is:
Overall research on the association between arts education and student outcomes is inconclusive.
Which is why I wrote my latest blog…