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O
n the surface one might
understand that when
school districts are forced
to cut programming, anything
that isn’t reading, writing or
arithmetic should be first on the
chopping block.
Too often, however, it seems
that anything that brings in
money — i.e., sports — is also
spared.
What’s left?
“It seems that the arts are
always the first thing cut and
really, it should be the last,” said
Rocco Landesman, chairman of
the National Endowment for the
Arts, in a recent exclusive inter-
view with
The Peorian
.
There are those, of course, who
will accuse Landesman of being
prejudiced toward the arts be-
cause of his position at the NEA
and because of his background in
the arts, including many years as
a professional theatre producer.
But he has some statistics from
national studies that tend to back
him up. That includes a study by
James Catterall that shows that
the academic results of students
enrolled in schools for the arts
“are off the chart” and that those
students tend to score highly on
achievement tests.
The Catterall study, titled
The
Arts and Achievement in At-Risk
Youth
, was based on four stud-
ies. Its findings, Landesman said,
revealed something every school
district in the country should
consider: Children from low
socioeconomic backgrounds but
with high exposure to the arts
score much higher and perform
much better academically than
those without that exposure to
the arts.
Part of the reason is because
the arts provide students the op-
portunity to express themselves,
whether it be with their hands,
their voice, their feet. Take that
kind of opportunity away from
them at school, where and when
will they express their feelings,
their frustrations? The answer is
not usually good.
To Landesman, the results of
that and other studies bear out
what he has been saying since
he became NEA chairman: “Art
works.” The Catterall study,
he said in his note in the study,
makes that belief “an absolute
truth.”
“I really think those findings
will surprise a lot of people, in-
cluding educators,” he said.
He is a firm believer in Presi-
dent Obama’s Turnaround Arts
Initiative, which has the premise
that arts education is education
reform. Turnaround Arts was
created in cooperation with the
U.S. Department of Education
and the White House Domestic
Policy Council as a public-private
partnership designed to trans-
form some of our country’s low-
est performing elementary and
middle schools using intensive
arts curriculums.
“Children should start getting
arts education in kindergarten or
from the very first time they start
receiving instruction in school,”
Landesman said.
To read that study and other
research on the subject of arts
education, including what Lan-
desman and other professionals
have to say about it, visit
www.arts.gov.
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