Two studies examined the relationship between children's clay models and the children's concurrent school achievement, and compared a 6-year longitudinal record of achievement test scores for one cohort of students at schools that did or did not provide visual arts instruction. Participating in Study 1 were 201 kindergartners and third graders from 4 urban public schools matched on school characteristics and neighborhood demographics. Two schools offered some visual arts education supplementing basic skills instruction. One school emphasized arts learning including dance, drama, music, and visual arts. The fourth school did not provide any school arts program. Photographs of clay models were rated by 3 trained judges for 13 features such as height, shape, clarity, texture, and detailing. Ratings were compared between grade levels and visual arts emphasis in the schools. Nationally standardized student achievement scores on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills were compared for art and non-art groups. Results indicated that art-trained children produced models more prominent in their degree of shaping, amount of detailing, and vertical position, but not expressive qualities. The art-trained, third grade models showed several significant positive correlations with standardized reading and math scores, which accounted for about 15 percent of total reading and math score variance. In Study 2, the Grade 6 reading scores for a 6-year longitudinal cohort of 414 children were examined and showed that art-trained children scored .63 standard deviation units above the overall mean. (The model rating scale is appended. Contains 98 references.) (Author/KB)