Arts and Education
There was a short article in the NY Times about a link in NYC schools between those who do well academically and arts offerings. (Is it the chicken or the egg?)
From the article:
"The report, which analyzed data collected by the city’s Education Department from more than 200 schools over two years, reported that schools ranked in the top third by graduation rates offered students the most access to arts education and resources, while schools in the bottom third offered the least access and fewest resources. Among other findings, schools in the top third typically hired 40 percent more certified arts teachers and offered 40 percent more classrooms dedicated to coursework in the arts than bottom-ranked schools."
Here's a link to the full report.
From the article:
"The report, which analyzed data collected by the city’s Education Department from more than 200 schools over two years, reported that schools ranked in the top third by graduation rates offered students the most access to arts education and resources, while schools in the bottom third offered the least access and fewest resources. Among other findings, schools in the top third typically hired 40 percent more certified arts teachers and offered 40 percent more classrooms dedicated to coursework in the arts than bottom-ranked schools."
Here's a link to the full report.
Comments
A loop:...Poor WASL scores? Focus on ReadWriteMathScience...poor WASL scores? Focus on RWMS...poor WASL scores?....
The dumbing down of education by dumbing down education.
Art, music...
welding...dance...drama...
All these things make a rich and varied curriculum, just as children are rich and varied. Focus on WASL results and you get WASL results that are worse because true education relies on the interplay of a variety of disciplines.
Bah.
Is Teaching dead?
Or do teachers teach on, regardless of the slings and arrows of injustice shot from the peanut gallery?
To teach, or not to teach: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous crapitude,
Or to take arms against a sea of reformers, and by opposing end them?
...For who would bear the whips and scorns of beancounters,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's bubble test, the pangs of the loss of Art, the IDEA law's delay, the state constitution's mandate's decay, the insolence of the Dept. of Education and the spurns of Gates grants and Broad desire?
When he, teacher himself, might his classroom make with a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear...And who would teach the bodkin and the fardel?
apologies to ol' Bill
The need for arts education was probably one of the primary reasons we opted for independent schools at both the MS and HS levels.