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Why Should We Care About Arts Education?

When we're struggling to find enough money to fund the most basic needs of our schools, how can we justify increasing funding for the arts? The answer is simple: In these complex and rapidly changing times, the arts are critical to a complete education for all children. Integrating arts education into our schools is an essential factor in school reform, and the benefits for our children are very real.

The Arts Transform Learning

Experience has repeatedly demonstrated that when the arts are taught in a comprehensive program, they help children develop learning and thinking skills that carry over into other subjects. When schools mix the arts into their basic
curriculum, learning in all subjects is enhanced, scores on scholastic tests improve,and the school environment is strengthened. How do the arts do this?
• Arts education engages a wide variety of learning styles, helping schools reach all children.
• The arts foster higher-order thinking skills such as analysis, judgment, reflection and decision-making - skills that are useful in every subject.
• Studying the arts encourages students to reach for excellence.
• The arts teach creativity and deepen these abilities at a young age.
• The arts transform the classroom by creating enthusiasm for learning.

The Arts Prepare Children For Work And For Life

An education that includes the study of the arts prepares children to lead productive lives in the new millennium. The skills and attributes that are essential in the Information Age economy are exactly those that are developed
through the arts:
• Teamwork and appreciation of diversity
• Verbal and non-verbal communication
• Imagination and creativity
• Adaptability and flexibility
• Analysis and decision-making
• Self-direction and motivation

A community's quality of life is measured, in part, by its arts and its support of arts education for its young people. Schools with strong arts programs are simply more exciting places to learn, and regularly see improvements such as:
• More motivated students
• Better attendance among students and teachers
• Increased graduation rates
• Improved multicultural understanding
• Renewed and invigorated faculty
• Greater community involvement and support for education

The Arts Can Change Children’s Lives

For youth at risk, the arts can provide a new path to academic and personal achievement. Through the arts, such children are able to:
• Develop self-esteem
• Learn the value of self-discipline and hard work
• Find outlets to positively express themselves

For children with physical, emotional and learning disabilities, the
arts provide:
• A chance to excel
• A way to communicate
• A means for expressing emotions they might find difficult to communicate, or are not aware of themselves - an important

Reprinted from the Oregon Arts Commission’s Arts Education Transforms Learning, September 2000.