Dr. Ryan Shaw, assistant professor of music education at Michigan State University, wrote this post urging the legislature not to scrap the 1-credit arts education requirement for high school graduation. There is a move underway to drop that requirement and replace it with a potpourri of “21st century skills.”
As Dr. Shaw points out, this is sheer nonsense. There is no more important 21st century skill than the ability to understand, participate in, and communicate in the arts. Music and art unite us, regardless of geography, gender, race, culture. They are vital human skills appropriate for every century.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Thank you so much!!!
Happy weekend!
Mitch
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The Arts and World Languages become the dividing line in have-vs.-have-not schools. (Tech. electives can be added as well–e.g., higher level courses for industry certification.)
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Social studies is also a dividing line. Many more rich offerings and more full-year, instead of half year, classes in wealthier schools.
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Exposure to the arts is an essential component of a well rounded education. The arts develop divergent, critical thinking, and they connect us to what it means to be human. Some students may even find their true passion in the arts. Today billionaires and techies have far too much influence in our schools. They continue to try to narrow the focus of the type of education we should offer. They are only interested in producing cheap, drones for their future workforce. We are the educators, and we know best. The arts are an essential building block of producing better humans that can fully think and feel.
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retired teacher. I have raise my red flag. Exposure is not quite enough, unless you believe that the artistic fare provided to all childen outside of school is sufficient and also hard to escape from.
I do not believe that “exposure” to the arts develops divergent or critical or creative thinking. Insofar as children and teens are steeped in the artistic fare provided by and for commercial purposes, I also wonder how much that exposure to that fare teaches about “what it means to be human.”
If I seem to be overreacting to your use of the term “exposure,” it is only because that is too often associated with the “little dab will do you” theory of being well-educated in the arts, either one of the arts or all of the arts.
Most workers in arts education have been fighting that premise for a very a long time. And the premise is migrating to learning well beyond studies in and about the arts.
Consider the recent Ohio Strategic Plan for Education: 2019-2014 “Each Child Our Future” which demands educators give EQUAL attention to Four Learning Domains (pp.12-13)
“Beyond foundational knowledge and skills, students need exposure to a broader range of subjects and disciplines. These include social studies, science, world language, arts, health, physical education, and career-technical fields, among others.”
The foundational skills? “Each child must know how to critically read, write, work with numbers, and leverage technology.”
What is to be given EQUAL attention? Two other domains: “Social-Emotional Learning” and “Leadership and Reasoning Skills.”
This document is what you get when the dominant players are clueless about the meaning and the implications of the constructs that have words for.
I am grateful that Diane brings attention to arts education and policies that are needed to support that.
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Unless students are exposed to the arts, they will less likely to appreciate the arts. A few of those exposed will decide to study in earnest. Without access to those experiences, they will not have the opportunity to explore more. As far as critical thinking, I was mostly considering the impact of attending a theatrical production.
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It really is sickening what’s become of arts education in the US. Because public schools are funded, here, in order, by a) property taxes, b) state education funds, and c) program-related federal funds (ESSA, IDEA), and because almost half of public-school funding comes from the first of these sources, affluent communities are the ones in which you will find schools with fancy theatres, orchestras, and art classrooms amply stocked with supplies. Due to decreased state funding, arts programs were already being cut back most places before NCLB, but after NCLB, state funding continued to decrease at the same time that vast resources were diverted to standardized testing, test prep, and so on. Art programs were hit hard.
Ironically, one of the Ed Deform mantras is making kids “College and Career Ready,” but increasingly, white collar jobs require people who are creative thinkers and communicators—ones who can, for example, put together a well-designed slide show presentation or video script or web page. But arts programs have been cut back so much that schools aren’t doing much of that anymore. They aren’t, for example, teaching kids concepts like these: https://bobshepherdonline.wordpress.com/2019/03/18/thirty-for-suggestions-for-composing-the-frame/
Training students in performance arts (music, dance, theatre, debate, public speaking, and so on) also pays enormous dividends in their later work and civic lives: they learn how to be comfortable getting in front of others in a public setting–a meeting at work, a conference, or a school board or county commissioners’ meeting. It’s no wonder that expensive prep schools of the kind that kids from affluent, powerful families attend provide lots of training in public speaking, debate, and other performance arts. The wealthy in the US, today, send their kids to such schools or the same reason that, in ancient Greece and Rome, they send them to study with a rhetorician.
But beyond the utilitarian, there is the simple fact that making and enjoying art enriches life enormously.
In short, an important reason to kill Ed Deform is the enormous opportunity cost of all that testing and test prep—it takes time and money and other resources away from valuable learning and experience, like participating in debate or learning how to design an attractive ad, magazine spread, or webpage.
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Hey, billionaires. You want to “reform” preK-12 education? Provide arts grants to high-need schools and buy books for poor families with kids.
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For every ‘Finders Fee’ for a teaching temp., that could be clarinets or cellos or barres or laptops or materials for sets or costumes or voice coaches or royalties/licensing fees or….in schools.
Kids, not temps.
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Amen! yes, yes, yes!!!
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Bob, I have to disagree with grants-based funding for arts education. Suppose we spoke of financing every subject by that means.
The practice is promoted by the National Endowment of the Arts and state arts councils, but in that case with public funds and the long-standing justification that such grants offer employment for artists. Few people realize that schools must fund part of the expense of these artist-in-school programs. I would much prefer that grants support the non-profit arts offered in a community. Those organizations can serve as the conduit for additional grants for educational programming. Moreover, having an educational program also appeals to those who are alreading supporting the arts, including public officials. Schools that depend of grants-based funding, including libraries and books for use in schools, are inviting taxpayers to think it is OK to do so. No shared responsibility is needed. Also, billionaire funding of any program is fickle. I speak from long experience.
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Excellent point, Laura!!! Yes, it is essential that there be normal, dependable, on-going public funding for school arts programs.
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I didn’t mean to suggest, Laura, that private grants would be the major source of funding for PreK-12 public school arts funding. And your point about people mistaking such grants as a viable alternative to regular state and local funding is very well taken.
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I had an art class in both middle and high school. If we managed to pay for these courses more than fifty years ago, I know we can afford to pay for them now. The problem is more about the “will” to pay for them as more corporations are pulling the strings and inserting themselves into policy.
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I hate putting the teaching of music as something that will improve math and reading scores. I believe that all cultures have music and this enrichment is essential to developing a well rounded child. Sometimes, however, this type of thinking is the only thing politicians and administrators will accept.
I posted a comment. I am orangputeh.
………………………………………………………..
Music Education Can Help Children Improve Reading Skills
March 16, 2009
Source:
SAGE Publications/Psychology of Music
Children exposed to a multi-year program of music tuition involving training in increasingly complex rhythmic, tonal, and practical skills display superior cognitive performance in reading skills compared with their non-musically trained peers, according to a new study.
Several studies have reported positive associations between music education and increased abilities in non-musical (eg, linguistic, mathematical, and spatial) domains in children. The authors say there are similarities in the way that individuals interpret music and language and “because neural response to music is a widely distributed system within the brain…. it would not be unreasonable to expect that some processing networks for music and language behaviors, namely reading, located in both hemispheres of the brain would overlap.”
The aim of this study was to look at two specific reading subskills – vocabulary and verbal sequencing – which, according to the authors, are “are cornerstone components in the continuum of literacy development and a window into the subsequent successful acquisition of proficient reading and language skills such as decoding and reading comprehension.”…
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090316075843.htm
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American workers standing up for our education system
Pete Buttigieg
10:38 AM (3 minutes ago)
Hi there,
Earlier this week, I joined United Teachers Los Angeles, SEIU Local 99, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters, and Mayor Eric Garcetti at a rally in downtown LA to stand up for smaller classroom sizes, raising teacher pay, and putting more nurses in schools.
I saw what the future of organized labor looks like: A coalition of teachers, education workers, and carpenters standing shoulder to shoulder fighting to make sure the future is better than the past; to defend workers’ rights; and to insist on more resources, on more professionals, and on better wages in our schools.
The workers in LA may be organizing around a specific ballot measure, but the values they are defending are universal, and they are under attack by a federal government that does not understand the importance of public education.
No solo es una pregunta de recursos…es una pregunta de valores.
Our freedom is on the line, because education gives us the freedom to have the lives of our choosing. Freedom is not just about cutting. Freedom is about building, and our workers are building the platform to give our kids the freedom to have a better life.
Our security is on the line, because a huge part of our national advantages rest on education in this country. If we lose that, there is no level of military gear that can do the job. When we stand up for education, we stand up for a safer America.
And our democracy is on the line because we are not just educating workers for the future, we are educating voters for the future. That’s why education is not optional. That’s why humanities and arts education are not a luxury. We are building citizenship in classrooms across the country.
We organize as an act of hope. We do these things because we know they will make a difference — that’s what our democracy is all about.
I was invigorated by the energy of the workers in LA, and I am sustained by your commitment to a better future.
Thank you.
Pete
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“Michigan has relatively weak arts education policies. We are one of only a handful of states that does not require elementary school arts experiences, does not require the arts in middle school, and allows classroom teachers without arts training to teach the arts in primary grades.”
Michigan legislators seem to believe that naivety and ignorance in and about the arts should be the outcome of education in Michigan schools.
Michigan legislators have also been co-opted by the marketer of the “21st Century Skills” meme, Ken Kay, a tech lobbyist who twice tried to get federal legislation for his mash up of words and expectations for education. He also thought corporations should get a tax credit for supporting aspects of his scheme. See https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/111/s1029.
Michigan legislators like the “21st Century Skills” meme but they are clearly intent on dropping the full array of skills in Ken Kay’s nonsense scheme. I say nonsense for several reasons. First, most of the skills are not unique to this century (e.g., critical thinking, communication, collaboration, creativity—the 4 C’s). Second, not everything important in education can be reduced to a skill set. Third, Kay’s expectations for education multiplied…like rabbits. The scheme called for students to master TEN Life and Career Skills, SIX Learning and Innovation Skills, FOUR Information, Media and Technology Skills, ELEVEN “key” subjects, and EIGHT 21st Century themes. Notice that Kay’s scheme was rolled out at about the same time as the Common Core (2007–2010).
Marketers of the Common Core tried to kill the 21stCentury Skills meme by setting up an absurd program called EdSteps in order to assess skills such as problem solving, creativity, global competence, and writing. That project died but you can see the archived ghost of it here: https://www.wested.org/resources/edsteps-using-student-work-to-teach-assess-21st-century-knowledge-skills/
Michigan legislators are not alone in trying to dump anything that looks like formal education in the arts offered by teachers who are well qualified by education and experience.
Although 44 states say they require arts instruction in high school, only 45 require coursework for graduation and 21 of those states hedge by allowing substitutions of the kind that Michigan is forwarding. It is fascinating that one hallmark of excellence in education is a balanced program of studies in the arts, sciences, and humanities. https://www.ecs.org/wp-content/uploads/2019-ArtScan-at-a-Glance.pdf
Federal, state, and local policies are now favoring STEM. Michigan legislators should take a look at how duplicative their legislation has been for STEM courses and diploma endorsements. There is no need or no wisdom in cutting the already thin requirements for studies in and about the arts. https://thejournal.com/articles/2018/07/13/michigan-adds-stem-endorsement-to-diplomas.aspx
By the way, federal “innovation grants for arts education” were required to offer evidence that those programs boosted reanding and math scores. I kid you not.
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“They [arts] are vital human skills appropriate for every century.”
Exactly!
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What are those 21st-century skills: video games, texting, and not sleeping because you are playing video games and texting all the time?
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Of course, there is a non utilitarian value to the arts, but even if the focus is purely on the practical, it is very foolish to scrap the arts.
The arts inspire creativity which is the ONE thing that computers are not now and may never be capable of.
This makes education in the arts more important than ever.
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Computers excell at doing repetitive tasks that have been done before.
What this means is that every job that involves doing the same thing day after day — including many professional jobs like those performed by doctors and lawyers — will eventually be done by computers
What computers can’t do (at least not yet) is imagine something that has never been done before.
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Studies are revealing that too much tube time (staring at screens) actually retards/damages our imaginations and our critical thinking and problem-solving abilities.
What they are finding is pretty scary.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mental-wealth/201402/gray-matters-too-much-screen-time-damages-the-brain
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Well said, SDP. The arts are the seedbed of creativity and originality as well as self discipline and focus
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