The study reaffirms research on the role of the principal as the primary instructional leader at the individual school level. Principals create the expectations and climate in the school building, and their support for arts education is essential.
Many principals interviewed for the study spoke of early learning or involvement in the arts or of professional development opportunities that helped them to decide to support arts in their schools. Others were convinced by the effectiveness of arts education in addressing specific issues. For instance, principals looking to create a thematically focused or interdisciplinary approach in an elementary or middle school have found that art forms can play a central role because of their complex content and range of activities. Others have found that hard-to-reach students become actively engaged in the arts and, subsequently, in other aspects of the school.
Similarly, parent and family involvement in arts education enhances the overall environment for learning.
For a district as a whole to sustain the successful implementation of arts education for all its students, a sufficient number of these building-level leaders must personally value the arts or be persuaded by other pragmatic considerations to make them an important aspect of the school. In view of the national trend to site-based management, this factor is critical. Recognizing this, district-level leaders in several of the districts studied include arts education in the professional development activities of school principals."
Gaining the Arts Advantage: Lessons Learned from School Districts that Value Arts Education is a report released by the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities and the Arts Education Partnership. The research conducted in the report was funded by the GE Fund, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and Binney & Smith. excerpted with permission.
For more information on Gaining the Arts Advantage:
President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities
1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Suite 526
Washington, DC 20506
(202) 628-5409 fax:(202) 682-5668
www.pcah.gov/gaa/ (for PDF download)
www.pcah.gov/gaa/study_findings.html
CCSSO Publications
One Massachusetts Ave, NW
Suite 700
Washington, DC 20001
(202) 336-7016
email:pubs@ccsso.org
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