Schools in the United States have encountered substantial cuts to arts education, prompting them to partner with arts organizations to provide arts learning opportunities. Arts education advocates see potential benefits and drawbacks to these arrangements. While they can provide schools with valuable resources, such arrangements could further…

There is scant evidence on the level of arts education available in U.S. public schools and how this has changed over time. In this paper, I present new evidence on broad trends in arts education in U.S. public schools from 1988 through 2018 using nationally representative data from the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) and the National Teachers…

To start off this special issue on COVID-19 and K-12 arts education, this article places the impact of COVID-19 on public education into context, and drills down to how the pandemic affected the delivery of arts education. The article begins with an overview of the inequities revealed in our public education system by COVID-19. While many of these…

In 2009, a group of local foundations, the school district, arts organizations, and the Mayor's Office launched the Boston Public Schools Arts Education Initiative (BPS-AE)--a multiyear, citywide, public--private initiative aimed at increasing BPS students' access to in-school arts education. Managed by a strong local intermediary with deep…

In this concluding article for the special issue on COVID-19 and K-12 arts education, the authors look forward to some positive possible changes for the delivery of arts education as students return to school past COVID-19 and will address some of the barriers to these positive changes, including policy opportunities and implications. The barriers…

The arts can be used to teach, not just as activities that enhance learning, but also as the primary medium through which students process, acquire, and represent knowledge. This means the arts can function as a language. If we accept this metaphor, and we truly want students to be fluent in the artistic languages, then the arts can be taught in…

At the heart of current education reform is the charter school movement. Charter schools, their role in the New Orleans, Louisiana, educational community, and the effect of charter schools on students with special needs are the focus of this article. New Orleans, Louisiana, has the largest number of students attending public charter schools in the…

In considering how policy work might forward arts education, it is helpful to reflect on the present state of music and arts education while looking ahead at future challenges and possibilities. This response to Shuler's (2001) set of predictions related to music education and policy in the twenty-first century addresses such work in the…

This study examined high-stakes test scores for 37,222 eighth grade students enrolled in music and/or visual arts classes and those students not enrolled in arts courses. Students enrolled in music had significantly higher mean scores than those not enrolled in music (p less than 0.001). Results for visual arts and dual arts were not as…

Arts education and special education within public schools have faced similar challenges in the wake of school reform. Services and programming have been reduced, leaving a larger gap in resources and accessibility. Because of loopholes in policy, new reform initiatives such as vouchers and charter schools will continue to marginalize students…

Does arts integration contribute to student success for disadvantaged student populations? The introduction to this article compares students' academic performance and arts education in countries outperforming the United States on the recent Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and Progress in International Reading…

Arts Education is, technically, core to the school curriculum according to federal mandates and certain state mandates. However, it is rarely made accessible to all students despite earnest advocating on the part of dedicated organizations and individuals. In order for a democratic society to function successfully, its members must be invested and…

In this article, the author examines the current arts education policies in the United States through the lens of Matthew Arnold's work and prose during his time as one of Her Majesty's School Inspectors in England and Wales in the nineteenth century. Arnold argued for government funding of public school systems, setting standards of quality for…

Students' interests in and access to disciplinary study in the arts have increased dramatically over the past fifteen years. This is due in large part to steady growth in K-12 arts programming during the 1990s, when policymakers came to view arts instruction as part of an effective response to concerns about the quality of America's schools. Arts…

This article represents differing perspectives on the creation and establishment of the Rhode Island Arts Learning Network (ALN). At the heart of this discussion is whether or not the Rhode Island task force in charge of this process took advantage of what noted public policy analyst John Kingdon refers to as a "policy window" where…