Pennsylvania

This document reports the findings from a survey designed to provide a snapshot of the state of K-12 arts education in Western Pennsylvania, including Allegheny, Fayette, Greene and Washington counties. View the full report.

Rhode Island

Currently in Rhode Island there is a lack of equity in physical and programmatic access to arts learning opportunities for children and youth, both in and out of schools. The visual arts and music are the most common option for middle level students. Most districts do not offer theatre and dance in the curriculum. In districts that did report a theatre or dance program, it was offered in one particular school and not district wide. Very few districts offered all four arts areas as part of the basic curriculum, but many districts did offer theatre and dance as after-school offerings. Urban districts tended to offer more arts-learning opportunities, across all four arts disciplines, than did many suburban districts. This was due to outside funding and greater levels of community collaboration. A total of 127,678 students were served by community organizations in the arts, rather than in-school programs. There is inadequate support to train, equip, and connect resources to provide students arts learning opportunities. Both human and physical resources are insufficient, including materials, training, and professional development for teachers, parents, and the community. Gaps in resources must be identified and new opportunities must be built. View the full report.

South Carolina

South Carolina recognizes that arts education — learning the skills and content of art forms, including creative writing, dance, drama, media arts, music, and visual arts and design — is part of a student’s complete education. The 2014 Arts Education Task Force builds on the landmark work of South Carolina’s Arts in Basic Curriculum (ABC) Partnership (S.C. Arts Commission, S.C. Department of Education, ABC Project Office at Winthrop University, and a coalition of other arts and education organizations), which, for 27 years, has driven and guided statewide efforts to improve arts education for all children in our state. Statistics show that in South Carolina, most high poverty schools do not offer dance classes, have an aligned music and theatre curriculum, and do not experience arts assemblies. This report uses these statistics to show the status of arts education in South Carolina as it seeks to improve its state-wide arts education programs for future generations. View the full report.

Texas

Research continues to demonstrate a correlation between the study of fine arts and overall academic achievement. To explore this relationship of fine arts participation to academic achievement in Texas schools, the Texas Coalition for Quality Arts Education, together with Texas Music Educators Association (a TCQAE participating organization) collected data regarding campus academic achievement ratings, campus rating improvement, graduation rates, and fine arts enrollment from 2006 to 2010 as reported by public schools across Texas. View the full report.

Utah

The 2009-10 statewide assesement for Arts Education was completed in Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana. More than half of the districts in three of the states did not treat the arts as a core subject, and arts teachers had very high and challenging student-to-teacher ratios. Dance education barely existed except in Utah where it was more available, and Utah experienced greater increases in student participation in the arts than the other three states. Wyoming has total (school-wide) enrollment increase of 1%, average dance enrollment decreased by 8.26% and the average music enrollment decreased by 5.30%.The Montana Arts Education Assessment showed that in elementary schools, Music (86% school-wide enrollment) and Visual Art (61%) are offered most frequently, while Theatre (5%) and Dance (3%) were rarely offered. 11% of respondents offer no high-quality arts experiences, and less than half (43%) treat the arts as a core curriculum. Arts education in Idaho reflects the national situation: the arts are core academic subjects and are included as a two-credit high-school graduation requirement, the state has adopted content standards in the Humanities to outline the skills and recommended content for grades K-12. View the full report.

Washington

In Washington state 63% of principals are dissatisfied with the quantity of arts education in their schools, saying that a priority on test preparation in other core subjects leaves less time for instruction in the arts in the early grades. While most elementary students receive at least one hour of both reading instruction and math each day, these students spend far less time studying the arts: 33% of elementary students receive less than one hour of arts instruction per week. View the full report.

West Virginia

The West Virginia State of the Arts Survey is the first statewide collection of data on arts education in West Virginia. Music and Drama were the most popular extracurricular arts activities, with 96.4% of respondents indicating that grades 9-12 have extracurricular Music programs. 85% of respondents indicated that students in grades 2-6 receive 0 minutes of Drama class per week. Overall the survey suggested that Music and Art are priorities over Drama and Dance. Music and Art were generally far more widely available then Drama and Dance, and 63.3% of respondents claimed that Dance was not important compared to “academic” subjects. There was encouraging commitment to Art and Music by public school administrators, and there is hope that the same commitment can be applied to Drama and Dance through education about the benefits of arts education. View the full report.

Wisconsin

Every district in the state offered Art at the high-school level. 75% of middle school students were enrolled in Arts courses and 88.5% were enrolled in Music. When offered, Dance has greater enrollment than Theater in middle schools. At the high-school level, music enrollment declines to 73%. Rural communities have more favorable participation levels and student-teacher-ratios. Overall student enrollment has remained flat, but Music and Art enrollment have both declined by more than 5% in the past four years. Theater and Dance enrollments have increased in the past four years, although total participation is still small. View the full report.

Wyoming

The 2009-10 statewide assesement for Arts Education was completed in Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana. More than half of the districts in three of the states did not treat the arts as a core subject, and arts teachers had very high and challenging student-to-teacher ratios. Dance education barely existed except in Utah where it was more available, and Utah experienced greater increases in student participation in the arts than the other three states. Wyoming has total (school-wide) enrollment increase of 1%, average dance enrollment decreased by 8.26% and the average music enrollment decreased by 5.30%.The Montana Arts Education Assessment showed that in elementary schools, Music (86% school-wide enrollment) and Visual Art (61%) are offered most frequently, while Theatre (5%) and Dance (3%) were rarely offered. 11% of respondents offer no high-quality arts experiences, and less than half (43%) treat the arts as a core curriculum. Arts education in Idaho reflects the national situation: the arts are core academic subjects and are included as a two-credit high-school graduation requirement, the state has adopted content standards in the Humanities to outline the skills and recommended content for grades K-12. View the full report.

The South

The south arts education study was conducted across nine different states, with consistent methodologies and response rates. The findings showed that a high percentage of students have some exposure to arts education- most prominently music and visual arts. There was a high adoption standards for arts instruction following state standards. This ranged from 69% to 95% between the four primary art forms. Kentucky stood out for the higher than average (compared to the regional results) access to dance. However other states mostly had low access to dance and theatre. Dance access in Kentucky highlights the need for more specific statewide studies, in order to inform and explain the regional trends. View the full report.

The south arts education study part two, focuses on describing the nature of successful arts education programs in the region, rather than statistical analysis that was done in the south arts education study part one. Case studies were the primary source for the concluding recommendations. The aim of the report was to look at quality from the ground up. The report found a need for strong supportive principles, collaborative work, and community partnership, when building successful arts education programs in the south. It also stressed the need for capable arts staff, who were motivated to build positive community partnerships. Relationships are key to creative successful programs within the region of the south. View the full report.