Toward Civilization: A Report on Arts Education

GENERAL

Research Abstract
Toward Civilization: A Report on Arts Education

In 1985, the 99th Congress called for a study of the state of arts education as part of the reauthorization of the National Endowment for the Arts. This was the second such request in history. The first, more than a hundred years ago, was a request by the 46th Congress for the report, Art and Industry, Instruction in Drawing Applied to Industrial and Fine Arts, which was completed by Isaac Edwards Clarke in 1884. That report reflected our national aspirations for culture and our sense of inferiority as we measured ourselves against Europe. Now over century later, Congress has mandated another report on the state of arts education in the . (p. 1)

This report relies heavily on two recent surveys conducted with the support of the     U.S. Department of Education: one at the state level and one at the school district level. The 1985 Arts Education and the States report sets out the findings of a 1984 survey of state education agencies undertaken by the Council of Chief State School Officers. (The survey was jointly sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation, the U. S. Department of Education and the National Endowment for the Arts). The 1988 Public School District Policies and Practices in Selected Aspects of Arts and Humanities Instruction report sets out the findings of a 1987 survey of a national probability sample of 700 school districts. This survey was undertaken especially for this report to Congress as a joint project by the U.S. Department of Education, which funded it, in collaboration with the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts.

As directed by Congress, this report contains a synthesis of the information and insights contained in previous studies. It includes, among other things, review of 3,000 Educational Resource Information Center (ERIC) abstracts on arts education; the 1985 report by the Music Educators National Conference, Arts in Schools: State by State; the 1986 report by Mills and Thomson for the National Art Education Association, A National Survey of Art(s) Education, 1984-85; A National Report on the State of the Arts in the States; John Goodlad's A Place Called School (1984); Laura Chapman's Instant Art, Instant Culture: The Unspoken Policy for American Schools (1982); Ernest Boyer's High School (1983); Theodore Sizer's Horace's Compromise ( 1984); A Nation Prepared: Teachers for the 21st Century (1986), from the Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy; Time for Results: The Governor's 1991 Report on Education (1986); the 1984 Rand Corporation report by Day et al; Art History, Art Criticism, and Art Production: An Examination of Art Education in Selected School Districts (prepared for the Getty Center for Education in the Arts); and the National Assessment of Educational Progress first and second assessments of art and music (1974 and 1981) and the writing assessment (1986).

We also reviewed arts curriculum guides from states and local school districts, books relating to education in the various arts, textbooks used by children for arts instruction, and textbooks used for the education of arts teachers. Interviews were conducted with education authorities, members of state and local arts agencies, representatives of professional associations, representatives of arts advocacy groups, teachers, supervisors, school administrators, publishers, testmakers, and members of the public. (p. 2-3)

CONTENTS
Foreword.
Preface.

Overview:
     What is basic arts education?
     Why is basic arts education important?
     What is the problem? 
     The State of Arts Education today. 
     Conclusion. 
     Recommendations.

Arts in the Classroom.
     Before kindergarten.
     Kindergarten.
     Elementary school.
     Middle and junior high school.
     High school.
     Special problems.
     Special resources for the arts.
     Conclusions.

Toward an arts curriculum.
     The state of the curriculum in arts education.
     Developing resource materials for teaching the arts.
     Critical issues in the arts curriculum.
     Recommendations.

The case for testing and evaluation in the arts.
     Unique problems in testing student achievement in the arts.
     Precedents for testing in the arts.
     The arguments for and against testing.
     Recommendations.

Teachers of the Arts.
     Elementary school classroom teachers.
     Arts specialists.
     Reform in the teaching profession: Implications for Arts teachers.
     Specialist or classroom teacher: Who should teach the arts in elementary school?
     The scarcity of arts specialists.
     Recommendations.

Research priorities in arts education.
     The lonely task of the researcher in arts education.
     Varieties of research.
     Federal help for arts education research.
     Recommendations.

Leadership in arts education.
     The governance sector.
     The education sector.
     The arts sector.
     The business-producer sector.
     Recommendations.

The role of the National Endowment for the Arts.
     The arts in education program.
     Discipline programs.
     The challenge program.
     Evaluation of endowment efforts.
     Conclusion.
     Recommendations.

Appendices.
Bibliography.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Report
National Endowment for the Arts
182 p.
December, 1987
PUBLISHER DETAILS

National Endowment for the Arts
1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington
DC, 20506
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