"It Ain't So Easy Being a Dog"

"In dance, the most important thing is how our bodies move," Anderson reminds the students as she encourages them to perform the steps, first like happy dogs, then like angry ones. For many of the children, the dance represents more of a physical release than a stage-worthy performance. But Anderson knows her students are learning important skills through rhythm and movement and building their flexibility, agility, and balance, even if they don't realize it.

"I don't think people are educated on dance education enough," she admits. "Dance is about history. We can even work science in. It gives kids the chance to be hands-on." 

The irony? The very students NCLB is most aimed at helping—those who are low-income, minority, and academically vulnerable—are the ones studies consistently show stand the most to gain from regular arts instruction. "In our effort to close the achievement gap in literacy and math," notes Raymond Bartlett, president of the Council on Basic Education, "we risk substituting one form of educational inequity for another, denying our most vulnerable students the kind of curriculum available to the wealthy."

Arts educators are keenly aware of the irony, but say it only underscores a trend that's been quickening for years.    

Sanguinito, a music teacher, knows firsthand how uncertain the career of an arts educator can be. He spent six years nurturing the strings program in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, increasing enrollment from 30 students to more than 175. But that didn't stop school officials from axing the program, citing the district's stagnant budget. So, last fall Sanguinito became an itinerant music teacher in Reading and now instructs 111 fourth- through eighth-grade students in five different schools in the inner-city district.

In Belleview, Florida, tight economic times likewise led to staffing and program cuts for the arts, says Sylvia Richardson, a commercial art teacher at Belleview High School, who has maintained her program through fund-raisers and grants.

"Art teachers often are put in the position to self-sustain our programs," says Richardson, who snagged $29,000 of grant funds last year. "At my school everyone gets the same amount of money in their budget—about $200. That equals a package of crayons and some paper for my kids. You're not going to have much of an art program with that." 

"A great deal of what art and music teachers do is expose kids to something they otherwise might not have known, to develop talents they didn't know they had," says Lague. "I think the arts are more important now than ever, but we still have the concept that if we need to cut they are one of the first things to go."

That's what makes programs like the one at Pullen so remarkable. Even in the face of increased testing pressures, the Pullen Arts Magnet School has offered a comprehensive arts curriculum for the past 15 years, serving students from across Prince George's County, Maryland, in kindergarten through eighth grade. In fact, the program was one of only two magnet programs the county did not eliminate last year. Elementary students receive 80 minutes of arts instruction every day and, over the course of the school year, explore each of the four major art forms: visual art, music, dance, and theater. Middle school students, meanwhile, spend an hour and a half every other day specializing in one art form they select as their "major" and pursue other arts, writing, or computer classes on their off days.

Admittedly, programs like Pullen's remain the exception. And educators at the school realize that even strong programs like theirs won't ensure quality arts instruction for students elsewhere.

"My biggest concern is we have a wonderful program at this school, but then it's very easy for the county to say 'we have an arts magnet school therefore no other kid in the county really has to have any arts,'" says theater teacher Carol Jordan. "This is an amazing program, but if you only keep it here and there is nothing else, you're not going to serve the kids who most need it."

Stage Fright

"The public believes the arts just benefit talented and gifted kids and there is a fear that pursuing a program in the arts will not get you a decent job or into college," he says. "And where you don't have strong public values for the arts, you don't have them well represented in school."

The future of arts education hinges on changing those underlying public attitudes, he adds. Fortunately, arts advocates have made some progress on that front. A recent Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll on public attitudes toward the public schools found that 81 percent of Americans worry that judging a school's performance solely on English and math test scores will mean less emphasis on art, music, and other subjects. That percentage increases to 85 percent among parents of public school students. Meanwhile, a poll commissioned by Americans for the Arts, a nonprofit arts advocacy group, found that more than 90 percent of respondents agree the arts are "vital" to providing a well-rounded education to children.

But public opinion goes only so far. Schools remain strapped for cash and supporting an arts program doesn't come cheaply. Many districts simply don't allocate the necessary resources or do not know what it takes to develop quality arts programs, says Michael Blakeslee, deputy executive director for the National Association for Music Educators. In addition, finding educators to teach these classes can be challenging since many arts disciplines, like music, have a shortage of qualified teachers.

"Because there aren't the mandates for these programs, if you don't have enough teachers an enterprising supervisor can say 'I can solve the shortage by cutting the program' and anecdotally we hear of that happening," says Blakeslee.

"We're seeing that low-income minority students are being denied the liberal arts curriculum that their more privileged counterparts receive as a matter of course," says Raymond Bartlett of CBE. Yet research shows such students have the most to gain from regular arts instruction.

According to AEP's report Champions of Change, a compilation of studies on the impact of arts on learning, students who participate in the arts outperform those who don't on virtually every measure. Researchers found that "sustained learning" in music and theater correlate to greater success in math and reading, and students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds see the greatest benefits. In fact, "learning in and through the arts can help 'level the playing field' for youngsters from disadvantaged circumstances," the researchers contend.

Similarly, a study of after-school programs for disadvantaged youth found that students engaged in the arts achieved more academically and personally than similar students not involved in after-school activities. The arts students outperformed peers who participated in sports, community involvement, and academic after-school programs as well.

"All students benefit intellectually, personally, and socially from quality arts education," says Deasy. "But students of special needs—English-language learners, special education, those who may be failing in school—those who are often the lowest performing on standard measures of achievement, are immensely benefited from the opportunity to engage in quality arts experiences and instruction."

Educators at Peter Howell Elementary School in Tucson, Arizona, know he's right.

Say OM-A

OMA stands for Opening Minds Through the Arts—an innovative approach to learning that integrates arts lessons into all aspects of instruction. Twice a week music specialists from the University of Arizona teach instrumental music and composition to students, while reinforcing key learning concepts presented by the classroom teachers. For instance, kindergartners review basic counting and numerical patterns by exploring patterns in music with a visiting woodwind trio or string quartet. Meanwhile, first-graders learn about the structure of a story and build their language skills by writing and scoring their own operas.

"You would think that losing half an hour every day out of your teaching time is a lot to give up," says Eve Long, who teaches a combined kindergarten and first-grade class. "It's not really giving it up, though. It's really enhancing what I'm doing. It's making my teaching easier because the kids are so willing to jump onto these things."

In addition to working with the visiting musicians, teachers meet in grade level teams for an hour each week to strategize on lesson topics and instructional approaches. Then they collaborate with the school music and art specialists, individually and at monthly joint meetings, on ways to use music and visual art to accomplish their learning goals. Fifth-graders studying landforms in science class may make clay models or other visual representations of what they are studying. At the same time, the music specialist reinforces student literacy by reviewing classroom literature during his music lessons and helping students craft original songs based on a character's emotions or a key plot element.

Howell is not without challenges, of course. The school, which serves 400 predominantly Hispanic and African-American students, meets almost every condition for an "at-risk" population. About 80 percent of students receive a free or reduced-price lunch and half are English-language learners. Many students live in single-parent households, while others live in the local homeless or domestic victims' shelter or one of two group homes for orphans. Most arrive at Howell's front door with limited vocabularies and under-developed auditory skills—two traits Jan Vesely, the school's principal, thought she could improve by using the arts. So, five years ago she and the school's music specialist developed OMA as a way to enhance student achievement by integrating the arts into math and language arts lessons at each grade level. And the approach seems to be working.

Her first year at the school, Vesely's students struggled to score in the 40th percentile on the Stanford Achievement Test, a national math and reading exam. A year later, at the end of the pilot year for the OMA program, the first-graders scored in the 80th percentile. An independent study by WestEd, a nonprofit research agency, found similar results: after two years in the OMA program, second-grade students had significantly higher reading, language, and math test scores than students in schools without OMA. Additionally, the achievement gap for Hispanic students narrowed considerably for students involved in the program. Coincidence? Vesely doesn't think so.

"We had to figure out how we connect things in a meaningful manner so we could buy more time and make the time we do have more efficient and effective with the kids," says Vesely. "The arts help reach kids in more intimate areas to open them up to learning. And the feeling is the more angles we can hit, the more likely the child will master the concepts. We're not just teaching. We're teaching for learning—and it's working."

But OMA's impact goes well beyond test scores. Since implementing the program, student behavior problems have decreased, attendance has improved, and students appear more focused and ready to learn, teachers say. The program provides an additional avenue for students learning English as well.

"I've had children from China or Mexico who've come in with no English and of course it's scary for them," says Christina Diaz, a kindergarten and first-grade teacher. "But as we do our songs, you see their body language relax, and I believe they learn their English through music first. They are getting the formation of our language and it connects them to the other children."  

Last year, for instance, Diaz had a student from China who couldn't speak a word of English at the beginning of the school year. By November, the student had the leading role in the school opera and had developed excellent English skills, she says.

"Initially, many teachers felt [the OMA program] was just one more thing we had to do," Diaz admits. "But the key is integration. Teachers look for more creative ways to teach. And over the years we've taken for granted that it really helps the children learn better."

Teachers at North Carolina's Mineral Springs Middle School A+ Academy feel the same way.    

Arts Get an A+

Integrating the arts is nothing new for this Winston-Salem middle school, which, like Howell, serves an at-risk population of predominantly poor minority children. Since 1995, the school has participated in the A+ Schools Program, an instructional approach that encourages classroom teachers to collaborate with arts specialists to enhance their curriculum from multiple perspectives. Students also receive daily instruction in drama, dance, visual art, or vocal or instrumental music, depending on the discipline they choose to study.

The program, now based at the University of North Carolina Greensboro, started with 25 pilot schools statewide, including Mineral Springs. Today, more than 40 schools in North Carolina have adopted the approach, many as part of their school improvement plans to increase student achievement. During the past two years, schools in Oklahoma and Arkansas have implemented the program as well.

"The arts provide children with alternate languages out of which they can make sense of what's going on," says Vincent Marron, executive director of the A+ Schools Program. "One of the things the program does is release the creativity of the teachers and encourage them to take an overall view of their role as leaders in a school. It provides the teachers and students with more entry points to learning than a traditional approach to the curriculum would allow."

Most importantly, each school can customize the program to suit its specific needs. At Mineral Springs, for instance, academic and arts educators plan two thematic units each year per grade level that incorporate lessons in all disciplines—including the arts. The approach appeals to students' different learning styles, provides multiple opportunities for students to master content, and helps students see the connections between each subject.

Last year, for example, the eighth-grade team developed a comprehensive lesson around the Great Dismal Swamp in North Carolina. Students started by reading The Weirdo, a book set in the swamp, in their English classes and wrote essays from the perspectives of different characters in the book. Then a field trip to the swamp provided an opportunity for students to collect moss, soil, and insect samples they analyzed for science class. The project culminated with students creating original artwork inspired by their trip.

"No student has only one set of talents or skills," says Noel Grady-Smith, a dance teacher and the school's A+ program coordinator last year. "If we only address that one set of skills, specifically the mathematical/logical and the verbal/linguistic, we miss a whole range of expertise the student has."

With that in mind, teachers don't limit students to pencil-and-paper tests to demonstrate the knowledge they have mastered. Eighth-graders studying the Harlem Renaissance, for example, complete a research paper for their language arts class; a visual presentation, such as a Microsoft PowerPoint display, poster, or dramatic interpretation, for social studies; and an interpretative dance for Grady-Smith. The approach lets students express themselves through their work, she says; and, consequently, they become more invested in their own learning.

"Children can express and experience learning much more fully when they have an artistic medium to work through," Grady-Smith says. "It helps them get into deeper levels of thinking so they are applying knowledge and abstracting. They have to be able to do that to turn what they have learned into art."

The Same Old Song

And when Howell Elementary School wanted to add visual arts to the OMA program last year, Vesely had to resort to tax credits and other financial donations to the school to pay the teacher's salary. As a result, the art teacher works only part time.

Meanwhile, educators at the Pullen Arts Magnet in Maryland fund the school's drama and dance productions through ticket sales, since the county does not provide any money for the events. The school also organized a nonprofit community support group to raise money to upgrade the arts facilities and hopes to build a new creative and performing arts center on the school grounds next year.

Such penny pinching and dollar stretching come with the territory, arts educators say. Nonetheless, they remain hopeful that sooner or later those outside of their disciplines will understand and value their subjects as much as they do. 

"Arts educators should hold on and weather the storm," says Jeff Peck, a theater teacher at Pullen. "Because in the long run people will see that all arts programs are vitally important and they need to be maintained and continued because they will ensure that we have better students."

The Play's the Thing Photo by Michael Marks Through theater, students and teachers change community opinions, one audience at a time. For much of her teaching career at Newark Memorial High School in California, theater teacher Barbara Williams played it safe. Popular musicals, like West Side Story and Cabaret, dominated her students' performance repertoire. But in 2002, after her community endured a series of anti-gay hate crimes, Williams knew she needed to branch out. So she staged a production of The Laramie Project, a play about the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay college student in Laramie, Wyoming.   "I felt we needed to do something that had some significance on this issue," says Williams, who received a 2003 NEA Human and Civil Rights award for her work on the production. "All of us had this idea that by doing The Laramie Project we would correct all the ills in Newark. We thought by doing this play everyone would change their minds." That's a sentiment theater teachers and student actors nationwide can appreciate. So many educators are using their school productions to raise awareness about key social issues—and improve the state of affairs in their local communities along the way. "I'm a big believer in educational theater—it should entertain, but it also has an obligation to educate," says Michael Marks, NEA Executive Committee member and a theater teacher at Hattiesburg High School in Mississippi. "Theater can be an agent of change. If we can cause people to speak with each other about topics that were once taboo, we've accomplished a lot."  The idea of addressing key social issues through theater certainly isn't new. For years, schools have used plays like The Diary of Anne Frank, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and A Raisin in the Sun, among others, to address topics such as the Holocaust, the treatment of the mentally ill, and racial discrimination, says Michael Peitz, executive director of the Educational Theatre Association (ETA).   What has changed, though, are the topics students are tackling. Through plays like The Inner Circle, Freedom Summer, and The Guys students at Hattiesburg High School have addressed AIDS, the struggle of local civil rights activists, and the September 11 terrorist attacks. Meanwhile, productions of The Laramie Project and Bang Bang You're Dead, a play inspired by the school shootings of the 1990s, are on the rise, according to ETA. But school leaders, audience members, and the general public aren't always interested in the progressive messages these plays offer. Many question whether such works are even "appropriate" material for teen actors. During Newark High's production of Laramie, for instance, students had to enter the school through police barriers because protesters picketed the play. And Williams received plenty of calls from other educators seeking advice when their own districts refused to let them perform the show. Even The Crucible, which topped ETA's list of most-produced high school plays during the 2002–03 school year, has raised a few eyebrows for dealing with witchcraft. "There are times when we think students aren't ready to handle these issues and, in some ways, doesn't that deny the reality of the world the students live in, since they deal with those issues every day?" Peitz asks. "In all of these [works], the teachers are looking for plays that challenge their students' minds, as well as those of their audience." And it works. During their production of Freedom Summer, students at Hattiesburg High School met with actual members of the historic 1964 campaign to register Black voters, many of whom had been beaten or jailed for their efforts. "It opened [the students'] eyes to the struggle and they had a better appreciation for where they are today as a result of what these men and women did in the 1960s," says Raphael Waldrop, forensics coach in the Hattiesburg theater department. Meanwhile, after Williams' students performed The Laramie Project they organized a group to speak out against hate crimes and lobbied district officials to modify the city code to include protections for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered individuals. "Laramie turned out to be something that is still with me and probably always will be," says Williams, who retired this summer. "All the kids in the show felt they had made a difference and got the community to sit up and take notice and make some changes. And it's created this incredible desire to keep doing it."

No Subject Left Behind?
Think Again.

Bonnie Rosenfield didn't plan to spend her summer looking for a job. 

But like 20 other health and physical education teachers working for the Minneapolis public schools, Rosenfield got a pink slip on July 2. Health and P.E. simply aren't educational priorities in the district, Rosenfield says, because they aren't part of the "testing standard."

"I feel like people look at us as educational frills, that we're not necessary, and that's why we've been taking heavier cuts than everyone else," the health teacher says. "But being healthy isn't an elective."

"Even though there is no decree that says 'don't teach these things,' if there is no accountability for it, the things there are accountability for take precedence, so that is affecting programs in some places," says Dr. Judy Young, vice president for the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance.

For health and P.E. teachers that means less time with students and often more of them, as many as 40 to 60 students per class in some places, Young says. Some districts, like Minneapolis, have assigned physical education teachers who have multiple certifications to teach other classes. Others, like Cooper City, Florida, pull students out of class for additional academic work and encourage P.E. teachers to incorporate math and reading lessons into their curriculum to prepare students for the state tests.

"Too many people in administration have the old concepts of 'here's a ball, go play,' rather than what we really do in physical education today—help kids understand who they are and how their bodies work," says Wendy Wood, a physical education teacher at Pioneer Middle School in Florida. "[Students] learn the value of being physically fit. It also improves their mental alertness and ability to concentrate on their academic subjects."

Social studies classes have taken a beating as well, especially at the elementary level. Nearly 30 percent of elementary school principals surveyed by the Council for Basic Education (CBE) say their schools have reduced the amount of time spent on social studies classes. The percentage is even higher among schools with large numbers of minority students, where nearly half of the principals report moderate or large decreases in social studies instruction.

In Florida, for instance, students now can graduate with six fewer credits, which means many could complete their high school careers without taking a single social studies course, says Evelyn Butts, a world history teacher at Tampa Bay Technical High School. Her school, which serves 2,000 students, has half as many social studies teachers as English teachers, Butts says. The social studies educators also receive less professional development and fewer resources than their English, math, and science colleagues. 

"The No Child Left Behind act actually diminishes the need for social studies," she says. "Because the emphasis is on English and math, and to a certain degree science, you have to say that is important because that is what's being tested."

Foreign language teachers, like Kay Miller in Wichita, Kansas, also are feeling the fall-out from NCLB as school officials reallocate their resources. Even though Miller had 105 students registered for her French classes at Heights High School last year, the district downgraded her job to a half-time position. With the help of her local Association, Miller got the full-time slot reinstated for this school year, but teachers at other area schools weren't as fortunate. Of the district's 11 high schools, only three employ full-time German teachers, she says, and several reduced their French teachers to part-time employees.

The situation is especially critical for minority students. In the CBE survey, 23 percent of principals in high-minority schools have reduced the time they devote to foreign languages, while 29 percent expect future decreases. At the same time, foreign languages continue to lag at the elementary level, with only one-third of elementary schools offering any instruction.

"What's important here is that all subjects be adequately funded and earmarked as core subjects so they remain in the curriculum and part of what youngsters experience," says Jesus Garcia, president of the National Council for the Social Studies. "We're very concerned our children are leaving our schools having a rather distorted and unbalanced curriculum presented to them that will result in kids who can perform well on tests, but who know very little about other subject areas."

Time to Take Center Stage

What does it take to build a strong school arts program and how can you safeguard yours from the budget axe? Find out more in the special online bonus edition of the November NEA Today cover story. Here you'll find:

Resources for sustaining and building your school's arts program

Research about the academic and social benefits students receive from regular arts instruction

Information from education associations and nonprofit groups on the front lines of arts advocacy