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Within the New York public school system, there has been a prevailing attitude which dictates that arts education is not a vital part of child and adolescent development. This notion came to fruiting in light of the budgetary crisis within the public school system in the early to mid 1990’s. Since then, art education has struggled to procure funding and in fact many art education programs have been eliminated throughout the city’s public schools. In order to fully understand the scope and ramifications of reduced funding and/or the elimination of arts education in many of the state’s public schools, it is prudent that we first define the standards utilized for the determination of arts education. First and foremost, the New York State Academy for Teaching and Learning delineates four clear and concise standards for arts education. These standards include standards for creating, performing and participating in the arts, art knowledge and the use of art materials and guidelines, responding to and analyzing works of art and understanding the cultural contributions to the arts as well as its implications (NYS Academy for Teaching and Learning, n.d.). As a means of defining and delimiting the arts curriculum within the state of New York, the New York State Department of Education incorporated specific guidelines into its arts education curriculum. These guidelines include a comprehensive arts education program which includes diversity within the discipline. This diversity includes general areas such as dance, theatre and literary arts, music and visual arts. Utilizing these components the New York State Department of Education has developed a comprehensive arts education curriculum with three integral components. These components include skills-based instruction, instruction on aesthetic content and an integrated arts curriculum. The Skills-based instruction is one which involves training in specific techniques within each discipline. This may be in the area of playing a specific instrument, dancing or drawing. Instruction in aesthetic content involved training wherein the children were given instruction in the interpretation of art wherein the meaning of the particular pieces of art were described relative to their relationship with the applicable culture and its people. In studying aesthetic content, the individual learners are able to study artistic works from diverse cultures as well as their own cultures. The integrated arts curriculum is one in which the arts are utilized as a means of illustrating concepts from a wide variety of disciplines. When the arts are utilized in this fashion they become a vehicle for exploring non-artistic ideas. An example of this can be seen in the relationship between music and mathematics in that concept of musical intervals can be utilized to illustrate the underlying mathematical concept of fractions. Essentially, integrated arts facilitate the practical use of many esoteric concepts (Education Development Center, 2004). Despite the fact that the New York State Department of Education has embodied the belief that art education held the potential to be invaluable in the lives of children and adolescents, it has systematically been the first area targeted in times of budgetary need. The fight for and over arts education has been one that has effectively and efficiently led to a longstanding advocacy for its inclusion in the daily curriculum. Ultimately, the arts in the schools became something to fight for and over the next ten years, arts activists associated with New York Citys vast array of cultural organizations and arts institutions emerged to do so. They began using artists to fill in the breach. They used the financial support of arts funders to develop existing arts outreach programs and to create new institutions whose mission was to educate public school children. Over time, more than one hundred of the citys arts organizations, from the major institutions down to the tiniest fragile dance ensembles, developed a roster of "teaching-artists" in a wide range of art forms — collage, African drumming, Chinese calligraphy, modem dance, opera, flamenco, and puppetry, to name a few — who would visit public school classrooms. In the early years, they would visit each classroom several times and present performances. As time went on, the teaching rather than the performance took precedence and teacher engagements got longer until they involved typically ten to sixteen visits (Horowitz & Ingram, 2005). Instead of employing permanent arts teachers, a school whose administration had an interest in the arts would contract with an arts organization for artists to come to their school. Or if they wanted to educate their classroom teachers to incorporate arts projects in their classrooms, they could send them to short term elective staff development programs organized by arts education programs in colleges which had found this one way to retain a relationship with public education (Fineberg, 1994). Over two decades, artists and their organizations diligently developed and refined their programs. To get schools to make time for it in their busy schedules, devote resources towards it, and catch the attention of funders, arts education activists had to consider carefully and develop over time new teaching practices and a position on the role of art in schools and society that embodied what they most wanted to pass on in the arts and which they could prove valuable to a wide range of constituents. By the nineteen nineties, this new arts education discourse was convincing teachers, principals, education reformers and funders that the arts were more than "enrichment," or a frill. Not only were teachers around the city making time in their overloaded schedules for teaching artists to visit their classrooms, but artists were increasingly training teachers and school staff. Furthermore, arts education activists began to convince education funders that arts education had broad uses and implications for the citys public school students (Baker, Bevan & Admon, 2001). The most visible example of this was the Annenberg Foundations third New York City education initiative dedicated to "School Reform Through the Arts." It created a Center for Arts Education and offered large, multi-year grants for which partnerships between schools and arts organizations could compete on the basis of their plans to reorganize, change priorities, develop staff, or improve curriculum through a three-year phase-in of art programs. The Annenberg Initiative boosted the prestige of arts education to such a degree that Mayor Giuliani announced the creation of Project Arts, a three year initiative to begin in the same election year, whose stated mission was to restore arts education to the citys public schools (Baker, Bevan & Admon, 2001). Clearly advocacy has been very effective in reviving the arts within the public school system. Through arts education, activists seek to socialize dispositions they associate with democratic citizenship: the willingness and confidence to take positions without expertise, to ask questions, make observations, discuss and articulate ideas with others. By bringing a wider range of expressive forms into classrooms, arts education creates wider access to the literacy skills required for success in school. This is a matter of providing a richer more multivalent learning environment, more meaningful and interesting goals than succeeding on tests, and deemphasizing ranking procedures. In art classes, students forget for a while the objective usually put before them by the education system: to get good scores; during art classes, they pursue goals such as creating "good puppet shows." Ironically, the experience of being outside of the ranking system ultimately leads to greater success within it. Many teachers report that watching these changes in their students makes teachers more critical of the system they must work under. Within the education system, arts classes taught by artists transform teachers views of children and their potential. Art classes support a critical approach in teachers and provide the opportunity to observe and reflect on the injustice and inequality at the basis of the hierarchies created in and through schools as a result of limited resources, standardized and technically-oriented curricula, and the equation of accountability with high stakes testing. Teachers observe that all children have a range of abilities in the arts as well as in other subjects, and that "talent" is as much a function of scarce resources as it is inherent in a child and a legitimate basis for entitlement. Essentially, the role of advocacy within the arena of arts education is one that is invaluable. Advocacy has been responsible for maintaining arts education even in light of budgetary constraints and it has earned its rightful spot in public education. It is definitely here to stay. References Baker, T., Bevan, B. & Admon, N. (2001). Research Report Summary—Final Evaluation Report on the Center for Arts Educations New York City Partnership for Arts and Education. Retrieved February 10, 2007 from, http://cct.edc.org/report_summary.asp?numPublicationId=180. Education Development Center (2004). Center for Arts Education New York City Partnerships for Arts and Education Program 1996-2001 five year report synthesis—executive summary. Retrieved February 10, 2007 from, http://www.cae-nyc.org/downloads/reports/cae5yearexsummary.pdf Fineberg, C. (1994). Policy issues for school districts to consider. Arts Education Policy Review, 95(5), 22 Horowitz, R. & Ingram, D. (2003). Research Review. Teaching Artist Journal, 1(3), 183-185. NYS Academy for Teaching and Learning (n.d.). Peer Review—the Arts. Retrieved February 14, 2007 from, http://www.emsc.nysed.gov/nysatl/artstand.html Read More