Results tagged “arts” from Dewey21C

I will try hard to be positive and productive with this blog. I promise.

Okay, the long awaited Race to the Top final guidelines have been released. At the bottom of this entry I will provide a set of the links to the Executive Summary, full guidelines, press release, etc.

First, let's address the question: what about arts education?

The short answer is that the news is not good.  Arts education is an outlier in RttT.

It is possible to fit it in between the lines here and there, but an opening for something larger is pretty hard to discern on any practical level. Will some of the state applications include aspects related to arts education? Yes. How significant will they be? Most likely what we will see in arts education and RttT will be relatively minor.

The way it stands, well, a state department of education (the applicant) would have to go out on a limb for arts education as a literal reading of the guidelines do not support any major efforts in this regard.

Interestingly, in her Artsjournal.com blog today, Judith Dobrzynski/Real Clear Arts asks "what happened to the Education Campaign Pledge?"

Specifically she asks: "One speech does not a policy make, but some people are wondering about President Obama's commitment to arts education after hearing his speech on education last week."

The long answer is that the administration is in a sort of dilemma. What appeared in the education platform leading up to the primary, in terms of arts education, disappeared in the general election when the campaign released what was its last and final education agenda prior to the general election.

You can read about that here.

So, what we have is a case of an administration that is supportive of arts education but cannot find a way to fit it into major education policies. Another case in point with another administration: Remember NCLB, where arts became a core subject. And...and...and?

Without question, President Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, and Education Secretary Arne Duncan have spoken more about the importance of arts education than we have ever witnessed from any White House whatsoever including that of Clinton.

That being said, they may not know what to do about it beyond using the bully pulpit.

Judy is correct to ask the question. I would refine the context quite a bit by stating that the question should be based not upon the content of Obama's November 4th speech in Wisconsin, but instead upon the writing that appeared on the wall a long time ago.

I ran into a friend very shortly after Arne Duncan held a brief phone conference with the arts education field and issued a open letter to school superintendents and other education officials advising them on the importance of arts education and the ways in which Title One funds could be used to support it.

She said to me, with a big smile and a bounce in her step: "isn't this great; don't you think?"

My reply: "talk is cheap." Seriously, that's what I said. (It was early in the morning...)

Am I taking aim at the administration on this?  Well, yes and no. I believe that the focus on STEM subjects in RttT is a great example of how an opening for arts education could have been created in the guidelines. It was the prime moment to make good on the rhetoric.

Perhaps this is the fault of the arts education field?  As I was looking over the final guidelines this morning, I wrote on the back of the document: does RttT define an agenda?

What I mean by this is: what is missing from RttT and what are the implications for future actions?

At the same time, as I mentioned above, this helps to clarify the challenge to us: arts education is an outlier in education, plain and simple. So, while speeches from the administration about the importance of the arts are indeed important, they only go so far. We're not going to see more I believe, without us as a field helping to show the way. A tall order. I know. And, I don't think it's as simple as Quincy Jones convening a group of people to make demands.

So, I finish for the moment with this question: while Duncan's letter to school leaders is important, as I wrote about it at the time, well, what is someone to do: brandish the letter and show it to a principal or superintendent who decides to cut the arts?

USDOE Race to the Top

RttT Executive Summary

A Summary of Changes Made to the Final Guidelines

The Full Guidelines

It's not the smoothest time for teacher unions these days. They're a a pretty easy target when people wring their hands about the state of K-12 public education. But, hey, what would their critics do without them. Who would they have to criticize and blame? (The answer is: teacher colleges and school boards, in case you haven't heard.)

If you look around at most of the arts education programs nationally, you will find that the local teachers union is rarely part of the project. I believe that most people tend to view these unions solely through the lens of labor issues. And in an era when charter schools are the simple answer for many, many people, the teachers unions are in a difficult spot public-relations wise.

We have a slightly different perspective. This Saturday, The Center for Arts Education is presenting the first of three city-wide professional development conferences in partnership with the United Federation of Teachers Teacher Center (UFTTC). The UFTTC Teacher Center is the long-standing educational arm of the local New York City teachers union: The United Federation of Teachers. This first conference will focus on the integration of the arts, grades K-5.

Our colleagues at the UFTTC refer to this as a professional teacher conference.

The second conference in February will focus on arts education curricula and resources grade K-12. The final conference for this year, in May, will look at Career Readiness and Awareness Through the Arts, Grades 6-12.

Partnering with the teachers union is an easy call for me. First, they helped to found The Center for Arts Education, being incredibly supportive from the very first moment. Second, we've worked with them in an assortment of ways over the years, including partnering with them to create our Promising Practices publication in 1999. Lately, they've become an important partner in our advocacy work. Third, perhaps most important, is that we believe the best route to working with teachers in a school system that is becoming increasingly decentralized, is to find the pathway right to the teachers. What could be a better way than through the educational arm of the UFT, which has provided a wide range or professional development and support for teachers and para professionals for many, many years.

Moreover, these partnerships are expanding to include NYSUT, the state-wide teachers union in New York, as well as the American Federation of Teachers, which is the national union for the UFT and other local AFT chapters across the country.

I have been to just a few conference on arts education over the years. What I have found is that the number of school teachers and administrators that attend is always very, very small. So, the thought of working directly with teachers through their union holds great promise for connecting with the teachers without having to depend on the school district for access.

What has it been like to work with them you may be wondering?  I cannot say thank them enough. The two point people we've been dealing with at the UFTTC, Aminda Gentile, who runs the UFT Teacher Center, and Roberto Benetiz, our liason (he's a former teacher and administrator) are huge champions of the arts and have rolled up their sleeves to get our conferences, which I view as a beginning, off the ground.

I should also mention that the UFT has a new President: Michael Mulgrew. His pathway from professional carpenter, to Career and Technical Education Teacher, to union leader, gives him a very strong understanding and appreciation of the arts.

I am looking forward very much to this first conference on Saturday morning at the UFT Headquarters in Lower Manhattan...

Maybe I will have some pictures for you.

Presumably, this blog will be subject to some criticism by the Association of Hypnotherapists.

In today's New York Daily News, there is an article about the New York City Department of Education dropping almost $375,000 on the services of a "new age hypnotherapist." 

Apparently, this consultant was brought on board to "boost productivity and morale among middle managers" in the district.

Really, I am not putting you on here. I promise.

In a system  where spending on arts supplies was reduced by $7 million before the economy tanked, you have to wonder just a wee bit about how it can be spending money on a consultancy like this. You also have to wonder why it needs productivity and morale boosted, through the services of a hypnotherapist no less ?

Is there a logic model for this? What are the outputs? Is there an growing issue with past life recall among middle managers? So many questions, so little time...

Now, let me see, how many copies of the NYCDOE's Arts Blueprints could be made available for free with $375,000?

(Yes, the hard copy must be paid for, by schools and outside organizations.)

Last year, Parenting Magazine created the Mom Congress. Swell name, don't you think?

There's nothing like a group of fired up, crazy-passionate moms to get something done, and when it comes to our kids' education in particular, there's no shortage of work to be done. Mom Congress, a Parenting initiative with Georgetown University -- our education provider -- is here to help you make the changes you want in your local schools, and for kids nationwide.

Well, this month the Mom Congress takes a look at K-12 Arts Education in an article titled Why Art Makes Kids Smarter, by Nancy Kalish.

They also have put together four organization links they are calling their Arts in Action Toolkit.

"...Gonzalez (MS 223 principal) goes against current practice and eliminates periods of math, English language arts, and other subjects on a rotating basis to make room for 12-week blocks of visual arts, drama, dance, and both instrumental and digital music. "The academics haven't suffered," says Gonzalez. "Instead, the whole school has improved."

In today's entry for her recurring guest blog, titled CliffNotes, Jane Remer tackles arts education advocacy. Never one to mince words, Jane gives us all lots to think about.  RK
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As I have said for years, the arts education community is not a true "field," as it is riddled with great diversity of philosophy, purpose, method, content and ways of accountability. Arguing or advocating for financial and other support can be a tricky business because different "camps" make different claims, and it is often difficult to know what "outcomes" arts groups are campaigning for. As I see it, there are three major (often overlapping) positions when it comes to persuading, begging and bragging for financial support and recognition:

• The Human Intelligence and Development approach - Teaching and Learning, "we believe the arts are essential to every child's cognitive, affective, social and physical growth and belong in the core of the curriculum alongside math, literacy, science, and social studies," folk,

• The Moral Imperative approach - Enrichment and Exposure, "we believe every child deserves regular exposure to all the arts to enrich the quality of their lives and the culture of their communities, ... and to build future audiences," folk, and

• The Utilitarian Cake and Eat It approach - "Arts Integration, "we believe the arts are important vehicles and provide pathways for learning other subjects, skills, and concepts and should be woven into the curriculum to help teach math, literature, science, etc. folk. (Note: this definition is often tempered in writing with the caveat that the art form will receive equal treatment and attention, but in classroom actuality, time runs out and the study, skills and understanding of the art forms are more often than not forgotten or neglected.)

We may argue that these three "camps" are best seen as slices of a pie, or perhaps a Venn Diagram in which the four major art forms and some of the learning and other outcomes are the constants; everything else hugs to its "camp," but I fear that picture is too simplistic. The possible variations of slicing and dicing are almost endless, and do not address or help solve the advocacy conundrum.

The issues are (1) whether there is or ought to be a consistent platform or position that would satisfy all camps and at the same time make a powerful argument for supporting the arts as education, and (2) which arguments are the most powerful. And the answer is, as always, it depends. If you are arguing for the arts as education of the human intelligence and development, your pitch is often about teaching and learning; the moral imperative tends to appeal strongly to the ethically and artistically inclined and weaker with the accountability crew, the policy makers and bottom line business people. The utilitarian approach appeals to all Americans who recognize the arts connection to other subjects as a pragmatic wedge in the schoolhouse door and a fair compromise between the teaching and learning and moral imperative approaches. Given the diversity of our community, I doubt there is a platform or set of arguments that would satisfy "the field." Moving on, then, to issues around which we can perhaps coalesce.

What has always and still troubles me is that the arts community that makes such a significant and relatively expensive contribution to the education community is its own and almost only champion. We still haven't figured out how to make aggressive allies and stalwart champions out of a critical mass of the schools and educators who are our regular partners or to whom we provide services. We have not learned how to convey the enormity of the contribution we make to teaching and learning, to the human psyche and ethical senses, or to the connection and illumination of other subjects and disciplines.

We tend to use apologetic phrases such as "we work with the willing" and "pockets of excellence" when defending our relatively small impact on general education. Things haven't really changed that much since the sixties when we started our brands of arts education except that back then we really did have vibrant allies and champions in the U.S. Office of Education and the national elementary and secondary educational community, and the Humanities Endowment, to mention only a few. I attribute that support largely to the fact that we were part of a compensatory educational push in a broad social agenda for a Great Society which these days, the Obama administration only vaguely touches on.

We tend to settle for crumbs and call it progress, or leverage. We celebrate a token arts education "month" (just like a token Black History month), we make all the noise we can to draw attention to our work (successfully, but at best for a New York minute). We storm federal, state and local legislators' offices with boasts and brags about isolated arts "services" and activities that in no way transmit the context, breadth and depth of our most serious, imaginative and even "scholarly" work, the idea of commitment over time, and stories of powerful instructional and collegial relationships built between classroom teachers, arts specialists and professional artists in their extended work with students and their parents.

As I wrote at length in Beyond Enrichment over a decade ago, it strikes me as foolhardy to claim and bray about a kaleidoscope of often unrelated activities that will simply serve to underscore and perpetuate our reputation of superficial, even trivial entertainers "so nice to have, but not necessary." When we provide no indication of on-going planning, professional development, teaching and learning and sustained assessment, the seriousness of some of the arts providers work is lost in the carnival-like atmosphere.

Arts education deserves better advocacy than that. If we keep missing the boats that broadcast how hard we work as respectful, humble and committed partners to teach for deep understanding and extended learning in and through the arts, not isolated activities taught by those who come and go making no permanent dent in the school culture, we have only ourselves to blame if we are ultimately ignored both by the schools and the policy makers. Let us get together to turn our swords into plowshares.

Jane Remer October 1, 2009
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JANE REMER'S CLIFFNOTES We are at another rocky precipice in our history that threatens the survival of the arts in our social fabric and our school systems. The timing and magnitude of the challenges have prompted me to speak out about some of the most persistent issues in the arts education field during the last forty-plus years. My credo is simple: The arts are a moral imperative. They are fundamental to the cognitive, affective, physical, and intellectual development of all our children and youth. They belong on a par with the 3 R's, science, and social studies in all of our elementary and secondary schools. These schools will grow to treasure good quality instruction that develops curious, informed, resilient young citizens to participate fully in a democratic society that is in constant flux. I have chosen the title Cliff Notes for this forum. It serves as metaphor and double entendre: first, as short takes on long-standing and complicated issues, and second, as a verbal image of the perpetually perilous state of the arts as an essential part of general public education. I plan to focus on possible solutions and hope to stimulate thoughtful dialogue on-line or locally.

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Jane Remer has worked nationally for over forty years as an author, educator, researcher, foundation director and consultant. She was an Associate Director of the John D. Rockefeller 3rd Fund's Arts in Education Program and has taught at Teachers College, Columbia University and New York University. Ms. Remer works directly in and with the public schools and cultural organizations, spending significant time on curriculum, instruction and collaborative action research with administrators, teachers , students and artists. She directs the Capezio/Ballet Makers Dance Foundation, and her publications include Changing Schools Through the Arts and Beyond Enrichment: Building Arts Partnerships with Schools and Your Community. She is currently writing Beyond Survival: Reflections On The Challenge to the Arts As General Education. A graduate of Oberlin College, she attended Yale Law School and earned a masters in education from Yale Graduate School.
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This is a repost of a blog that I wrote last December. After a few recent circuitous conversations about arts integration versus arts as a discrete discipline, I thought it a good idea to repost.

As George Harrison once sang: "It seems like years since it was clear."

Once upon a time, most public schools had substantial arts education, with music and art most often recognized as the formal, official art forms. Dance and theater more often appeared as extracurricular activities, i.e., drama club. For many, many years, classroom teachers were expected to be able to teach the art forms. Primary school teachers were required to have a rudimentary knowledge of the piano, and teach dance, art, music, and drama in grades K-6. Many systems did not offer arts specialists licenses in the primary grades until the late 20th century.

The true comprehensive high school as affirmed by James Conant starting in 1959, gave great cause for arts education to expand, as a broader curriculum with expanded teaching staffs created a greater supply of secondary level arts education than ever before.

This period was fairly simple in terms of the variety of approaches to instruction, and indeed the architecture of K-12 arts education. School faculty taught the arts; arts organizations enhanced this instruction minimally, mostly through field trips. Most of the approach was disciplined-based; little was integrated. The teaching artist as formal entity had not yet appeared and arts education was dominated by traditional Western forms. In many ways it parallels the overall arts field itself: the forms were well defined and there were fewer of them. The modes of distribution and dissemination were much, much more limited.

The big bang of arts education occurred in the 70's, when a combination of a difficult economy, back-to-basics movement, and other assorted and sundry pressures and reforms created a gradual decline in arts education, particularly in the large urban school systems.

The big bang led to an expansion in what had been a relatively minor area in the non-profit arts sector: the arts education organization. I guess you can say the arts education organization as we know it was created during this big bang. In addition, we saw an expansion of arts education departments within arts organizations. Some of the organizations were created to be short-term, meaning to fill the gap or serve as a bridge until the arts teachers returned. Only, that never quite happened.

In many ways the big bang can be best observed and understood through the wide array of approaches to instruction that occurred in its aftermath: arts integrated across the curriculum; aesthetic education; youth development programs; and more. Add to this the emergence of the teaching artist, and you've got quite a different lot today than in 1959. Arts education split into many different pieces, much of which continues to cause great debate among practitioners.

At the same time, the arts as we know it have changed dramatically too. The field is much bigger, the modes of dissemination have changed drastically, the ways in which we categorize the various disciplines has changed dramatically, including new categories as well as the blending of categories. Thanks to technology, people can create art as never before, in their own homes and share it with a world in ways unimaginable 30 years ago. For instance, you can learn to compose, in your home, without a teacher, without coming in contact with musicians--without playing a traditional instrument.

I guess you could also liken the change to Humpty Dumpty. That's right, all the kings horses and all the kings men couldn't put arts education together again. Though that doesn't stop people from trying.

While I don't question the importance of quality, I do think that some of the discussions about quality track to this big bang. The pursuit of quality through instructional materials, through standards, through training, through compliance, and so much more.

On one hand, it's remarkable, for many of those driving education policy and even leading school systems don't give a damn about quality: they care about numbers. Metrics define the quality. And, in some ways you can't blame them. It's much harder to pursue quality through the lens of the art of teaching and learning. NCLB attempts to do this, from the perspective of teacher quality, through metrics associated with credentials, i.e., "how many teachers are teaching out of license?" Real teachers and administrators, practitioners, will tell you that approach doesn't do much for understanding quality. Others want to judge teaching quality by the scores on standardized tests. Still others have taken a much tougher road: at one point the Dayton, Ohio teachers union developed a significant peer review system.

Can you tell quality of an orchestra by how many subs are hired or how many tickets are sold? Does the short-term interest in an artist really tell us about the quality of the work?

In the name of quality, I've seen first-hand the attempts to bring back the architectures of the fifties, the structure of certified arts teachers, enhanced by teaching artists and arts organizations, and while progress has been made in many places, it's still a Humpty-Dumpty situation. It's a different field today, that continues to change just as the arts continue to change. It can never be put back together again, the promise is in the reshaping, the rethinking, and I believe in finding ways to create a virtuous cycle between teaching and learning in arts and education, to practice in the art forms themselves, however you may define them. Another way of putting it would be to ask how certain qualities of art making, artistic sensibilities--ways of thinking and knowing, can positively affect education, and vice versa.

Education seems to be very trend oriented. I think that the reliance on metrics should soften, and that the pendulum will shift to something more favorable. I also think, or really should say that I would like to think that the wave of "let's reform the schools so the function like corporations" will wane, as more and more people see the good and bad of an unfettered free market and the out of control corporate culture.

Have I ever mentioned that I love the Dana Foundation. Full disclosure: the organization I work for receives funding from Dana. With that out of the way, I just want to say I think they're one terrific funder and partner, doing exemplary work that is both unique, helpful, and dynamic.

Dana's current issue of Cerebrum features How Arts Training Improves Attention and Cognition.

Does education in the arts transfer to seemingly unrelated cognitive abilities? Researchers are finding evidence that it does. Michael Posner argues that when children find an art form that sustains their interest, the subsequent strengthening of their brains' attention networks can improve cognition more broadly.

I have always thought that of all the prospective research that could bolster arts learning, that it was this line of research, meaning research on the brain, that held the most promise.

This is something that all concerned with arts education should take the time to read and think about.

Nice work, again, from The Dana Foundation.

Which reminds me, I've been meaning to contact Janet Eilber at Dana (and Martha Graham!) to see if she'll do an interview for Dewey21C....I will have to get hopping on that...

This is one very fine read. Plus, it won't take you too long. If you have any interest in reading a piece that dissects a recent positive piece of research on a high profile program training principals in New York City, this what you want to click through to.

Finally, I can't end this post without commenting on the limits of assessing the Aspiring Principals Program primarily on the basis of the state test scores achieved by students (for the elementary/middle schools).  The fact that such test scores are often available--although never for students below grade 3!--and are at the center of the city's accountability system does not justify the decision to exclude virtually every other measure of principal performance that might be relevant. 

This little topic is a tough one. Think about it: according to number of different reports, the NY State ELA tests, which drives just so very much of the educational industrial complex, can be passed by guessing. When arts education is being pushed off the table, out of the school day, etc., look to how the curriculum is narrowed due to the dominance of these tests.

The Daily News covered this story last week:

The number of correct answers needed to score a Level 2 to get promoted has sunk so low that a student can guess on the multiple choice section and leave the rest of the test blank.

GothamSchools.org also covered this last week:

Independent statistician Frederick Smith examined the way free-response questions were graded and found that virtually every student received enough points on that section to then pass the test by guessing randomly on the multiple-choice questions.

On her blog for the Huffington Post, Diane Ravitch tied these pieces together and took aim at Arne Duncan and the Obama administration.

Another part of the problem is that the states have been quietly but decisively lowering their expectations and passing students who know little or nothing.

What isn't being discussed quite yet, is how it could be that so much money, time, and emphasis is being placed on tests that can be passed just by guessing? With testing, teaching to the test, test prep, supplemental services, and more, all tied together with the only simple measurements readily available to elected officials, well, what happens if the tests are made more difficult?

Would that mean even more resources would be drawn to standardized tests?

Or, perhaps it might be a good teachable moment to think a bit more deeply about what drill and kill is and isn't providing our students.

If you haven't heard by now, Arne Duncan, US Secretary of Education is having a conference call with just about everyone in the United States interested in arts education. Of course you have to register.

I am sure by now that you've come across this, as it has already been posted to all sorts of blogs and appeared in the news. But hey, this is August, the dog days of summer, so maybe you've missed it.

It is perhaps one of the most original takes on the arts in America, making the case for the arts as service to the nation, thereby establishing a relevance above and beyond what is ordinarily expressed.

I would sure love to know more about this, such as: did she write it herself? Did Ella Baff help her just a bit? I hope that we will hear more from Ms. Maddow on this subject.

"Sometimes we choose to serve our country in uniform, in war.  Sometimes in elected office.  And those are the ways of serving our country that I think we are trained to easily call heroic.  It's also a service to your country, I think, to teach poetry in the prisons, to be an incredibly dedicated student of dance, to fight for funding music and arts education in the schools.  A country without an expectation of minimal artistic literacy, without a basic structure by which the artists among us can be awakened and given the choice of following their talents and a way to get to be great at what they do, is a country that is not actually as great as it could be.  And a country without the capacity to nurture artistic greatness is not being a great country.  It is a service to our country, and sometimes it is heroic service to our country, to fight for the United States of America to have the capacity to nurture artistic greatness." -- MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, speaking at Jacob's Pillow

I wanted to end this very hot. humid, and WET New York summer week by recalling a swell dinner I had once with Merce Cunningham and Laura Kuhn, Director of The Cage Trust.

Creativity is the opposite of conformity and is nurtured by a supportive, positive environment that allows students to engage in creative play and honest communication; a place where their fears and vulnerabilities are, at least, acknowledged and not ridiculed.

On this last workday before the July 4th holiday weekend, I would like to share with you a piece by Linda Starkweather, who teaches theater at Eastridge High School's School of Performing Arts in Irondequoit, New York.

Linda's article appeared in New York Teacher, the magazine from my good friends and colleagues at the New York State United Teachers (NYSUT), which is the state-wide teachers' union in New York.

It's a touching article, from someone in the trenches.

Click here to read POV: The Challenge of Teaching Art in the Public School System

Here's an excerpt:

Most teachers have heard, and indignantly bristle, at the mean-spirited phrase, Those who can do, do. Those who can't do, teach. But the dilemma facing public schools -- with the realization that the arts might be important, if not essential, in cultivating the imagination and creativity of our children in order to reverse the blind progress of a culture gone mad with greed and individual success -- is that they need artists to teach the arts. And artists, by their very nature, do not respond to institutionalized fear as motivation. The world has become a place of terror and uncertainty, fueled by institutions that have learned the secret of controlling their members quite effectively by using fear. Although our government has the monopoly on this strategy, most institutions are operating within that same paradigm.

NAEP Finds Schools' Offerings in Arts Hold Steady

It's still very early, and our President has a thing or two to deal with. So, like many, I am still giving him the benefit of the doubt on education (as well as the banks), while liking some of what he's doing in other areas.

What a mess. But how often do you see someone challenging Eli Broad?

At first it was to be a regular high school to help with overcrowding in the area.

Then it became part of the Grand Avenue redevelopment led by Eli Broad, leading to the building of a $242 million state of the art facility. It was to become the "Fame" high school for Los Angeles.

Then it became a zoned arts high school for kids in the neighborhood. But not so fast, the school board ruled that 300 of the 1700 slots would be opened up district-wide.

They tried to hire an executive director. No dice.

Then they tried to hire a principal. No dice.

Now, get this, Ray Cortines, LAUSD Superintendent is having a public spat with none other than Eli Broad, a champion of charter schools, who is demanding that the school be converted to a charter:

"Cortines complained about an e-mail he said he received from Broad that was disclosed in an article in the Downtown News. Cortines said Broad told him that if the district did not give up control, "'the school is deemed to be mediocre and a failure.'"

Click here for the LA Times coverage of this school, which still retains the working name: High School No. 9.

Perhaps they would be better with the working title: High School Number 9 from Outer Space, as in Plan Nine from Outer Space.

A few weeks ago I wrote about a new report from the Government Accounting Office (GAO) concerning the effects of NCLB on arts instruction (see narrowing of curriculum).

Not a great deal of attention has been paid to this study, beyond a piece in the Dallas Morning News and two recent blogs: Eduwonk, and Education Week. Additionally, Michael Sikes of the Arts Education Partnership published an analysis of the report.

I have intended to come back to the study, as all I really did in my blog was to announce it. The piece in the Dallas Morning News pressed the issue.

The more I looked at this study, the more uneasy I felt.

I had spent some time with the researchers and like them very much. It's important to realize that even though they're the Government Accounting Office, as impressive as that may sound, the title doesn't necessarily give them access to information that districts, state departments of education, and USDOE do not want to share with them. In addition, the parameters they were allowed to research were extremely narrow.

So, the report took a look at two academic years of data, 2004-2005 and 2006-2007, and drew the conclusion that NCLB had caused little to no reduction in arts instruction for the roughly 93% of elementary school teachers surveyed nationwide. It found that seven percent of schools surveyed reduced instruction in the arts and that the most significant declines were in schools that were failing to meet AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) under NCLB measurement on standardized tests in reading and math, as well those with the highest percentages of minority students.

So, you might argue that it's very good news for those who support NCLB, with some very bad news if you have an interest in equity (which is what NCLB is supposed to be about anyway).

Good and bad, it is big news, and disputes the widely discussed report by the Center for Education Policy on NCLB and the narrowing of the curriculum.

So, why am I uneasy?