Policies often directly impact teachers' lives and practice, requiring them to engage in spite of extremely busy schedules. This article offers encouragement to music educators wanting to be active--and become activists--in education policy. Before becoming active, one must understand how music education policies come to be. I argue that arts…

Today's schools are preparing children, starting at an early age, for future educational and career opportunities that will help them succeed. With strict standards that must be met, measured in part by testing, it's not unusual for both time and funding to be shifted away from arts education to achieve this goal. While this might seem like a…

Attention to sub-conscious and pre-conceptual cognition is often neglected in educational research and theory, which, through failing to adequately conceptualize the emergence of perceptual learning, often inadvertently privileges a narrow and disembodied approach that emphasizes 'abstract symbolic processing' at the expense of more sensory forms…

Changes in education policy--particularly at the federal and state levels--during the current era of ideologically and profit-driven "education reform" threaten balanced education in general and music/arts education in particular. Emerging answers to a number of pivotal questions will determine the future of the arts, arts education, and…

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…

In times of difficulty, it is easy to see what many policymakers value. It would seem that many of them view the arts as a noncrucial element of a child's school curriculum. They want to cut music because they do not value music for its own sake, nor can they see how music could possibly help students in math, reading, or science. But what do the…

In this paper, the author explains why programs or potential programs designed to serve education in music and the other arts should be evaluated on the basis of breadth of coverage of standards-based skill and knowledge, of depth of coverage of that skill and knowledge and on the proportion of a given student population that they reach. Those who…

Describes music education and its priorities as a basis for stimulating research questions and discusses advocacy research as evidence of the worth of music education research cited by arts advocates. Responds to the publication entitled "Priorities for Arts Education Research" by the Goals 2000 Arts Education Partnership. (CMK)

This article is adapted from "The Handbook of Research and Policy in Art Education," Elliot Eisner and Michael Day (Eds.) [c] Lawrence Erlbaum and Associates, Mahwah, NJ 2004. The author contends that two fundamental premises drive arts education advocacy as it is currently coined and circulated. The first premise is that all arts programming is…

Introduces the symposium that explores the 1997 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) arts assessment. Provides information on NAEP, the arts assessment, and its importance; a discussion on the results of the arts assessment; and interpretations and implications of the results. Offers suggestions for arts advocacy. (CMK)

Considers the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 1997 Arts Report Card. The NAEP assessment provides data on what eighth-graders know and can do in music, visual arts, and theater. Evaluates the assessment, discusses the results, and addresses a call for action. (CMK)

This collection of speeches focuses on arts advocacy from perspectives ranging from arts education to the role of government and business in the arts. The book contains an introduction by Milton Rhodes and includes eight speeches: (1) "To Answer the Hunger Within" (Thomas H. Kean); (2) "It is the Dark We Have to Fear" (Edward Albee); (3) "Making…

These 12 articles focus on the theme of the arts in gifted education and nurturing artistic talent in the schools. "The California State Summer School for the Arts and Some Thoughts on Advocacy for Arts Education" by William Cleveland describes a program for artistically talented high school students and proposes a workshop based…