Where We Are
Now
The State of Arts Education in Washington State
A Commitment to Arts for Every Student. Learning in the arts is a vitally important dimension of children’s education. As Washington Superintendent of Public Instruction Dr. Terry Bergeson has said, “The arts are an essential part of public education. From dance and music to theatre and the visual arts, the arts give children a unique means of expression, capturing their passions and emotions, and allowing them to explore new ideas, subject matter, and cultures…. ” The arts also have the capacity to rejuvenate and re-engage teachers, bringing out creativity in the whole school.1
Across the country, educators, arts advocates, and policymakers at the local, state, and national level have recognized the central importance of the arts in children’s learning.2 Washington State adopted broad learning goals in the arts in 1993 and added specific arts standards to its Essential Academic Learning Requirements (EALRs), laying out what students should know and be able to do in dance, music, theatre, and visual arts, in 1994. Discipline-specific and grade-level frameworks were adopted in 2001.
In 2004, state policymakers reaffirmed their commitment to arts education by requiring schools to offer comprehensive sequential instruction in all four arts disciplines by qualified and certified instructors, and by establishing a high school graduation requirement in the arts. High school students graduating in 2008 will need a minimum of one year of study (one credit) in visual or performing arts in order to graduate. The content of the class must meet or exceed Benchmark Three in the learning standards; that is, it must reach a high level of knowledge and depends on students having instruction at Benchmark One (grade 5) and Benchmark Two (grade 8).
In the arts, a test like the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) will not be required, but by the end of the 2008-09 school year, school districts must implement classroom-based assessments or other strategies to assure that their students can apply core arts concepts in at least one art form. Districts will be required to verify their work by submitting an annual implementation report to the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI).
Taken as a whole, these new requirements call for a transformation in our approach to arts education in Washington’s schools.
Available supports for high quality arts education practice. With the coming graduation and assessment requirements in the arts, schools across the state will need to significantly increase their capacity to provide high quality arts education. To support this effort, a variety of resources are already available. OSPI is providing key leadership for arts education statewide. Sixty classroom-based performance assessments (CBPAs) in the arts have been developed by the OSPI Arts Office in partnership with a team of arts educators in dance, music, theatre, and visual arts, including arts administrators and classroom teachers. The CBPAs require students to create, perform, and respond, utilizing the creative processes of the arts and demonstrating that instruction and learning have occurred in the arts in alignment with the arts EALRs. CBPAs in each of the arts disciplines are available for voluntary use in grades 5, 8, and 10 in the 2005–06 school year.
A range of arts professional development opportunities are available from state education offices, school districts, universities, and non-profit organizations. OSPI is offering summer and winter arts institutes and a range of other technical assistance to help schools implement the assessments and other aspects of arts education. The state’s biennial ArtsTime conference highlights best practices in arts teaching, and is co-sponsored by the Dance Educators Association of Washington (DEAW), VSA Arts of Washington, Washington Music Educators Association (WMEA), Washington Alliance for Theatre Education (WATE), the Washington Art Education Association (WAEA) and ArtsEd Washington (the Washington Alliance for Arts Education) in partnership with OSPI. Many of these organizations also provide conferences and workshops in their respective arts disciplines as well.
Serving teachers in K-5 schools in King, Pierce, and Snohomish Counties, Arts Impact offers professional development in dance, theatre, and visual arts, including summer institutes and yearlong mentorships. The Washington State Arts Commission offers Community Consortium Grants and First Step Grants to arts organizations and schools to work together to help students meet the EALRs in the arts.
Arts on a learning curve: current practice in Washington schools. Drawing on these resources and others across the state, individual schools are proving that it is possible to provide students with high quality arts education that meets state standards while maintaining and even enhancing their progress in current high-stakes subjects like reading and math. These resourceful educators have found innovative ways of developing and allocating staff expertise, time, and money in support of their arts programs.
Today, however, schools and school districts still range widely in their capacity to bring high quality arts education to all their students. Through surveys and interviews with principals, AERI researchers have found that most schools are in the early stages of this process, and many are still contemplating how to begin.
According to AERI research, over the past five years only about half of principals in Washington have increased their arts education capacity, and gains for many appear to have been modest. Of the four arts disciplines, music is the most frequently taught, though almost 60 percent of reporting schools offer less than an hour of instruction per week at each grade level within the school. Visual arts is next in frequency. Statewide, very little instruction in theatre or dance is available at any grade level. And despite high levels of reported interest in the arts among the respondents, in many schools students are not yet getting any arts instruction at all.
Where schools are teaching the arts, the study showed that curriculum is often not aligned with state standards. Arts curriculum that exists is frequently undocumented, and can easily disappear along with experienced teachers when they leave. Similarly, though survey respondents are widely familiar with the arts EALRs, only about a third yet have the capacity to conduct assessments in the arts that are based on agreed criteria. Many schools struggle with systemic challenges in finding or training qualified staff; in finding the time for arts education in schedules committed to literacy and math; in obtaining or creating effective curriculum; and in finding money for the arts in tight budgets.
According to the survey results, about half of Washington school districts have an arts curriculum coordinator or specialist who can help individual schools, but many of these individuals are burdened with other responsibilities. District support for arts in individual schools is often minimal.
Despite all of the challenges they face, educators across the state express a strong interest in knowing more about how to implement high quality arts education, and a desire for in-depth support and training on specific issues in curriculum development, arts integration, performance-based assessments, and other topics.