SPEAKERS' BUREAU

Young Audiences of Indiana now has a speakers' bureau available to discuss the importance of arts education for children! We are also available to discuss YA's specific role in delivering arts education programming to your school, library, park, community center, preschool, afterschool program, festival, or fair.

If your PTA/PTO Group, Rotary Club, sorority or fraternity, Kiwanis Club, School Board, business, or any other organization would like to learn more about how the arts power education, please contact us! Speakers' Bureau request forms are available online. Or, give our offices a call at 317-925-4043, ext. 11.

CRITICAL EVIDENCE: HOW THE ARTS BENEFIT STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT

Why is it so important to keep the arts strong in our schools? How does the study of the arts contribute to student achievement and success? These and other important questions are addressed in a new booklet published by the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies (NASAA) in collaboration with the Arts Education Partnership (AEP). Critical Evidence: How the Arts Benefit Student Achievement responds to the needs of policymakers, educators, parents and advocates for fact-based, non-technical language documenting the most current and compelling research on the value of arts learning experiences.

Critical Evidence updates and expands on the case made for arts education in NASAA's earlier collaboration with the Arts in Education Partnership, Eloquent Evidence: Arts at the Core of Learning, originally published in 1995. "Ten year's after its release," observes Critical Evidence author Sandra S. Ruppert, "the evidence is even more eloquent, and the need to demonstrate the link between the arts and student achievement has grown more critical." 2006, 20 pages.

• View Critical Evidence
• Download Critical Evidence order form
  • Member: $6.25 Nonmember: $7
  • (For bulk rates, e-mail NASAA.)

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NEWS
COUNCIL OF CHIEF STATE SCHOOL OFFICERS

CONTACTS:
Lauren Stevenson (202) 326-8686
Sara Goldhawk (202) 336-7028

Washington, D.C., May 16, 2002 -- A new report released today by the Arts Education Partnership (AEP) finds that the arts provide critical links for students to develop crucial thinking skills and motivations they need to achieve at higher levels-and not be left behind. The research studies in this report further suggest that for certain populations-students from economically disadvantaged circumstances, students needing remedial instruction, and young children-the effects of learning in the arts may be especially robust and able to boost learning and achievement.

The report, Critical Links: Learning in the Arts and Student Academic and Social Development, details the relationship between learning in dance, drama, music, multiple arts, and visual arts, and the development of fundamental academic and social skills and will compel educators to think twice before cutting the arts if their goal is to increase student academic achievement.

"I urge education leaders throughout the country to read this compendium and pay close attention to its findings," said G. Thomas Houlihan, executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), the association of the leaders of state departments of education, who today sent the report to the education chiefs at the state departments of education. "In the No Child Left Behind Act, Congress named the arts as one of the core subjects that all schools should teach. The studies in Critical Links show the wisdom of that decision and the benefit of arts learning for every child."

The Arts Education Partnership is administered by CCSSO and the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies through a cooperative agreement with the National Endowment for the Arts and the U.S. Department of Education.

"While many of us have known arts education enhances academic instruction, Critical Links is the first report of the hard evidence that supports this conclusion," said United States Senator Thad Cochran (R-MS). "This will assist school boards, teachers, and administrators as they make choices about the curriculum and other opportunities our students should have."

Critical Links is a compendium reviewing 62 studies of arts learning in dance, drama, music, multiple arts, and visual arts. Interpretive essays examine the implications of the body of studies in each of these areas, and an overview essay explores the issue of the transfer of learning from the arts to other academic and social outcomes.

The report outlines the important relationships between learning in the arts and academic and social skills in the following major areas:

• Reading and language development -- Certain forms of arts instruction enhance and complement basic reading instruction aimed at helping children "break the phonetic code" that unlocks written language by associating letters, words, and phrases with sounds, sentences, and meanings. Reading comprehension and speaking and writing skills are also improved.
  
• Mathematics -- Certain music instruction develops spatial reasoning and spatial-temporal reasoning skills, which are fundamental to understanding and using mathematical ideas and concepts.
  
• Fundamental thinking skills and capacities -- Learning in individual art forms, as well as in multiple arts experiences, engages and strengthens such fundamental cognitive capacities as spatial reasoning, conditional reasoning, problem-solving, and creative thinking.
  
• Motivations to learn-Learning in the arts nurtures motivation, including active engagement, disciplined and sustained attention, persistence, and risk-taking, and also increases attendance and educational aspirations.
  
• Effective social behavior -- Studies of student learning in certain arts activities show student growth in self-confidence, self-control, self-identity, conflict resolution, collaboration, empathy, and social tolerance.
  
• School environment -- Studies show that the arts help to create the kind of learning environment that is conducive to teacher and student success by fostering teacher innovation, a positive professional culture, community engagement, increased student attendance and retention, effective instructional practice, and school identity.

"This report contains valuable insights that will help direct arts educators in their efforts to provide more effective arts learning experiences for their students," according to Eileen B. Mason, acting chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. "But we are still in the early stages of this important work. I hope private foundations will join us in supporting the next phase of research so that we can deepen our understanding of the nature of learning through the arts."

"It is imperative that further research be conducted to confirm and deepen the findings in this compendium," said Richard J. Deasy, director of the Arts Education Partnership. "These studies suggest that it is a matter of equity that we make high quality arts programs part of the education and development of every young person. Research needs to show the forms of arts instruction that will close the achievement gap for students who are falling behind. Critical Links points to specific directions for this future research."

AEP is a national coalition of arts, education, business, philanthropic, and government organizations that demonstrates and promotes the essential role of the arts in the learning and development of every child and in the improvement of America's schools. The partnership includes more than 100 organizations that are national in scope and impact. It also includes state and local partnerships focused on influencing education policies and practices to promote quality arts education.

Jonathan Katz, CEO of the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, said, "These findings should encourage education decision makers at the state and local levels to ensure that adequate classroom hours of arts teaching are available in all schools to all students, that learning in the arts is assessed, and that both arts specialist teachers as well as generalist teachers have adequate training and budgets to provide excellent instruction in the arts."

Critical Links is available in a PDF on the AEP Web site. To order printed copies, contact CCSSO Publications at (202) 336-7016.

The Council of Chief State School Officers is a nationwide, nonprofit organization comprised of the public officials who head the departments of elementary and secondary education in the states, the District of Columbia, five U.S. extra-state jurisdictions, and the Department of Defense Education Activity.

The Art Education Index

An alphabetical index of all titles and authors published in Art Education from 1947 to 1997, is now available from NAEA. As one of the efforts of NAEA to provide quality service to the profession, the purpose of the Index is to make information available to members and to the profession. It is compiled on 3.5 floppy discs and formatted in ASCI that can be easily converted to PC or MAC programs. The NAEA Art Education Index may be ordered from NAEA for $4.00 member price; $10.00 nonmember price per disc plus shipping/handling. For credit card orders call 1-800-299-8321 (8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. EST).

Research Finding: When teachers explain exactly what students are expected to learn, and demonstrate the steps to accomplish a particular academic task, students learn more. Comment: The procedure stated above is called "direct instruction." It is based on the assumption that knowing how to learn may not come naturally to all students, especially to beginning and low-ability learners. Direct instruction takes children through learning steps systematically, helping them see both the purpose and the result of each step. In this way, children learn not only a lesson's art content but also a method for learning that content.

• The basic components of direct instruction are:
• setting clear art goals for students and making sure they understand those goals,
• presenting a sequence of well-organized art assignments,
• giving students clear, concise explanations and illustrations of the visual arts matter,
• asking frequent questions to see if children understand the work, and
• giving students frequent opportunities to practice what they have learned.

References

Berliner, D., and Rosenshine, B. (1976). The Acquisition of Knowledge in the Classroom. San Francisco: Far West Laboratory for Educational Research and Development.

Doyle, W. (1985) . "Effective Secondary Classroom Practices." In R. J. Kyle (Ed.), Reaching for Excellence: An Effective Schools Sourcebook. Washington, D. C. : U. S. Government Printing Office.

Good, T., and Grouws, D. (1981). Experimental Research in Secondary Mathematics Classrooms: Working with Teachers. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri.

Hansen, J. (1981). "The Effects of Inference Training and Practice on Young Children's Reading Comprehension." Reading Research Quarterly, Vol. 16, No. 3, pp. 391-417.

Rosenshine, B., and Stevens, R. (1986). "Teaching Functions." In M. C. Wittrock (Ed.), Handbook of  Research on Teaching (pp. 376). New York: MacMillan. "Our nation's first priority must be on student learning in art, rather than exposure, enrichment or arts entertainment."