Final Research Paper

Here it is! The final draft of my research paper. Enjoy and comment!

Where Has All the Creativity Gone?:
The Need for the Arts to Return to the American Classroom

In his 2006 speech at the annual TED conference, Sir Ken Robinson expressed the notion that “creativity now is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status” (Do Schools Kill Creativity? 2006). During the last century in the United States, the focus in education has been on standardized test scores, rote memorization and regurgitation while actively neglecting the importance of creativity in the classroom. Recently, the trend in education has been the emphasis on mathematics and the sciences. In the wake of budget crises, educational programs such as the federal Race to the Top program, and the influence of films such as Waiting for Superman, the arts and creativity have been all but eliminated from the educational landscape. It is my contention that creativity through the arts and humanities needs to be returned to its rightful place in the classroom, as it has been shown to lead to greater academic and personal success. Education should encourage and foster creativity in students, not stifle it in the hopes of elevating achievement in other subject areas.
For many people, creativity and education are seen as being as separate as oil and water. They do not believe that the arts and creativity have a place in the modern classroom as we must strive to remain competitive in this rapidly advancing technological world. Educators and administrators stress that in order to compete with other industrial powers, we must achieve greater academic success in math and science, subjects that have a clear and defined correlation to computers and technology. Yet, the connection between the arts, creativity, math and science is generally overlooked or underestimated. For example, there have been numerous studies on the link between classical music and math test scores. A study by Hedden in 1971 showed that students who practiced classical piano performed higher on standardized math exams. It concluded that the creativity needed to interpret classical music pieces helped to stimulate higher level problem solving in the brain, which in turn had an effect on the student's abilities to perform better on the tests. So it can be argued that creativity and the arts do in fact have merit in the modern classroom and will serve to help students in their study of math and science.
There are a few misconceptions about creativity, which may have attributed to its declining influence in education. The first misconception is that only a few people are really creative. In actuality, it has been shown that we all possess the potential for creativity. As such, the emphasis on creativity in education who need to focused on everybody, not just a select few. The second misconception is that creativity is limited to its application to the arts and humanities. Traditionally, people have associated creativity with the arts only. However, creativity encompasses everything we do. From math and science to music and art to writing and the social sciences, creativity plays a vital, often unseen, role in the education of our children. Creativity in the classroom should be worked into the whole curriculum, not just limited to the arts and fringe subjects. The third misconception about creativity in education is that it is just a New Age, impractical theory while it is actually a disciplined process that requires skill, knowledge, and control. While, it is true that creativity requires imagination and inspiration, it also requires discipline to reign it in and hone it for practical use, such as a computer programmer working on a video game who must think creatively in order to come up with new game concepts yet must have restraint and discipline in order to work within specific parameters and meet deadlines for production.
The first misconception that not all people have the capacity for creativity is a source of major contention, particularly in the constant battle to increase funding for the arts while avoiding major cuts to arts education programs. In New York City for example, the Department of Education cut funding for arts programs by 68 percent since the 2006-2007 school year (Kreinin-Souccar 2010). The rationale behind such a large cut in arts funding was that not all students would benefit from arts education and that the focus should be on meeting the educational requirements set forth by the federal government. As New York City Councilman Robert Jackson, chair of the education committee noted “A frame work that emphasizes test scores has resulted in a significant diversion of resources away from arts education. The real irony is that students with access to arts education have been shown to produce superior academic achievement on standardized tests, the very goal that is being pursued” (Kreinin-Souccar 2010). It can be argued that if the education system wants all children to achieve greater success in math and science, then all children should have equal access to arts education in order to foster their creativity. Arts programs should not be relegated to specialized schools such as the LaGuardia High School for the Performing Arts or the High School For Visual Arts, they should be a part of the core curriculum of every public school starting with primary education all the way through higher learning institutions such as community colleges and universities. This way all students can gain from exposure to creativity, which they can then apply to their traditional studies where in hopefully this exposure will continue to show increased academic performance.
The second misconception about creativity is that it is limited in scope, mainly to the arts and humanities. The application of creativity in mathematics might sound like a foreign concept but is an idea that has been around for quite some time. Noted mathematician Augustus De Morgan once stated that “the moving power of mathematical invention is not reasoning but imagination” (Mann 2006). The notion that math and science have no room for creativity would have been absurd to early mathematicians and scientists. After all, it took imagination and creativity for a physicist like Sir Issac Newton to develop his theories on gravity. Creativity was at the center of Einstein’s work on the Theory of Relativity. One of the greatest scientific minds of all time and visionary inventor Leonardo Da Vinci was a classically trained artist and it was his ability to think creatively and out of the box that led to inventions such as his flying machine, parachute, and armored car, all of which were way ahead of their time. So it should be seen as natural to pair the arts and creativity in the classroom with math and science. Yet the exact opposite is happening.
Arts and creativity also have a place in world of business as well. Not only can arts education lead to creativity in math and science, but it can help increase overall problem solving skills. This is an asset that is highly sought after in the private sector. In an interview with the journal Educational Leadership, Sir Ken Robinson told columnist Amy Azzam “I work a lot with Fortune 500 companies, and they’re always saying, 'We need people who can be innovative, who can think creatively'”(Azzam 2009). This ability to use innovation and creativity in the boardroom can help companies remain competitive in their industries. It can also help an individual excel in their chosen profession, which is part of the goal of many in the field of education. So then, the question of why it is so hard for educators and administrators to connect the dots and ensure that creativity has a place in education is beyond me. It would seem that they would be clamoring to have an increase in funding and growth in arts education, but sadly this is not the case in the current educational climate.
The emphasis on success in standardized testing has increased in the last decade. As a result, it has had a detrimental, but not irreversible, effect on arts education. As more and more school districts across the United States concern themselves with the intense competition for federal funding, the focus has been on increasing student's performance on mandated standardized examinations. In her book, Contradictions of School Reform: Educational Costs of Standardized Testing, author Linda McNeil suggests that standardized testing has been the impetus behind major cuts to arts funding in schools across the nation. She goes on to state “Federal requirements in compulsory subjects such as mathematics, science and reading comprehension have lead school systems to drop programs in the performing and visual arts in order to fund remedial and preparatory courses strictly to compete for funding. The cuts to arts programs are almost never revisited” (McNeil 35). The fact that schools would decrease funding for or simply eliminate arts programs only to apply for greater funding is not the most troubling part of this problem. What is most troubling is that once these funds have been earned, that this new influx of money is not utilized to restore the arts programs. It creates a vicious cycle in which funds for arts and creativity have been all but eviscerated from most schools' curricula solely to secure greater funding, with the purpose of achieving higher test scores, which in turn leads to more funding, and so on.
There are many programs and charities today dedicated to restoring the arts in education. The focus is to enhance the arts education in order to improve the overall academic achievement. One such program is Save the Music, sponsored by the music channel VH1, which is owned by the Viacom corporation. The goal of the Save the Music Foundation was to raise funds to purchase musical instruments and create arts programs in schools that had been forced to make cuts to the arts due to lack of funding. The program was created in 1997 and as of 2009 had raised $45 million for the purchase of new musical instruments in over 1,700 public schools. On the foundation's website, they extoll the successes of the program and offer statistical data in support of arts education. One striking statistic is that those students who took various arts courses actually performed drastically better than their non-arts counterparts when it came to their SAT results. Participation in the arts and SAT scores seem to have a relationship that goes hand in hand. If one takes a look at the 2005 results shown below, it it is clear that those students with an increased focus in the arts have outperformed those with little to no arts education. Most noteworthy in this study is the fact that those students who took four years plus of arts courses exceeded their peers who had one half-year or less of arts coursework by 58 points on the verbal portion and 38 points on the math portion of the SAT.

Table Removed Due to Formatting

Source: 2005 College-Bound Seniors: Total Group Profile Report, The College Board, 2005

Just looking at these statistics it is abundantly clear that tarts education has a major effect on students' performance in standardized testing. As such, it would seem to make sense to anyone who were to read these statistics, let alone those in charge of the educational systems, that an increase in funding for the arts should be made a top priority, in order to reap the benefits and positive results. However, as it has been stated early this is still not the case.
However, there is still hope for a return of funding to save arts programs in public schools. At the federal level, there is the National Endowment for the Arts or the NEA. The NEA is a public agency dedicated to supporting the arts, bringing the arts to all Americans and providing leadership in arts education. Created by Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government, the Arts Endowment is the largest annual national patron of the arts. In 2010 year alone, the NEA has a budget of $167.5 million. The NEA maintains that all children deserve an education in the arts, one that enables them to create, perform, and communicate in and through artistic media. The No Child Left Behind Act, signed into law by President George W. Bush in January 2002, affirmed that the arts be considered a core academic subject, making it possible for children to receive the arts education they deserve and for schools to receive federal funds from national programs such as teacher training, school reform, or technology programs, that target core academic subjects. In the 1980s, following a Department of Education report entitled A Nation at Risk, which found America’s public schools to be failing, Congress mandated that the NEA report on the condition of arts education in America’s schools. The NEA surveyed school districts nationwide and formed an advisory committee of artists, educators, legislators, business leaders, and parents to review the results of the survey and recommend actions to be taken at the national, state, and local levels. These efforts show the willingness of some at the federal level to make real strides in arts education and to back it up with the funding necessary to maintain and create arts programs in public school systems throughout the country.
The report Toward Civilization, released in 1988, found basic arts education in serious jeopardy. First, the arts were too often considered non-essential subjects. Second, there was no common agreement among the leaders in public education as to what all students should know and be able to do in the arts. The report raised concern in the public and in Congress, which broadened the NEA’s role and responsibilities for arts education when it reauthorized the NEA in 1990. This involved taking more of a national leadership role in supporting and promoting the arts in education.
Many educators at the local level have decried the lack of funding for the arts. The school systems have failed to seek the funding from the federal level, due to either ignorance or a conscious effort to solely focus on the traditional educational subjects such as mathematics and science. As the world has become increasingly reliant on technology, the impetus has been that as a nation, there must be a greater emphasis on math and science education in order to remain competitive in a global economy. While this is understandable, it should be no means lead to an either or situation. To drain funds from arts education in order to boost education in math and science would be a crime.
Thankfully, the current administration, led by Education Secretary Arne Duncan, has seen the need to increase funding for arts education and restoring arts programs in America's public schools. In a letter addressed to education leaders throughout the nation, Secretary Duncan stated "The arts can help students become tenacious, team-oriented problem solvers who are confident and able to think creatively. These qualities can be especially important in improving learning among students from economically disadvantaged circumstances.” However, recent data from the Department of Education's own research yielded results which found that only 57 percent of eighth graders attended schools where music instruction was offered at least three or four times a week, and only 47 percent attended schools where visual arts were offered that often. This was alarming to Secretary Duncan and he felt it necessary to make some vast changes in the government's approach to arts education.
Secretary Duncan reminded leaders that through programs such as the NEA, states and local school districts have the flexibility to support the arts including professional development of arts teachers as well re-establishing arts programs in schools which had been forced to cut them due to an increased pressure to perform better in other subjects to meet federal testing standards. However, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was not addressed by Secretary Duncan. Its main focus since its adoption has been in improving skills in reading, writing and mathematics, areas where the United States feels it must succeed in order to be competitive. However, as the years have passed since it went into effect in 2002, an alarming trend has emerged. NCLB has had an increasingly detrimental effect on subject areas such as the arts, which are not covered under the federal mandate. Many educators believe that NCLB has had serious negative effect on arts education in particular. In the current time of budget crisis, almost all of the funds that schools receive from the federal government under NCLB are now allocated to only the testable subjects as well as the tests themselves. This means that federal funds which could be used to support arts education have been primarily focused in the core subjects, which the arts being left on the outside, looking in.
Unfortunately, that is not the only thing happening to the arts and electives in American schools today. Many principals and schools are now looking to hire arts teachers who are also trained in Math and English, which subsequently lowers the value of the arts in the eyes of administrators. In some schools, students are also faced with losing all elective classes entirely if they do poorly on the standardized tests needed to secure funding under NCLB. Their elective arts-based class is replaced by a remedial reading or mathematics class. While, it can be justified that a foundation in reading a math should be tantamount in education, the arts should not be seen solely as a reward. As the evidence in the paper supports, the arts should be treated as a core subject, and the lasting positive effects would help to increase performance. Sadly, the administrators usually treat the arts as a fringe benefit, with the students being the ones to suffer. In many situations, a student is promised that if they improve in their standardized testing results, they will be allowed to return to the full curriculum with the arts classes reinstated. However, the damage has already been done. The elective or arts class is now seen as much less important and that the student does not need to really try in that area of instruction.
Since 2007, it has been reported that almost 71 percent of schools have reduced instruction time in subjects such as arts and music, in order to give more time and resources to mathematics and English. It is understandable that schools fear the financial consequences should they not meet the federal levels for standardized testing. However, all that is happening is that student are being cheated out of a well rounded education, which the statistics have shown eventually lead to greater academic performance and personal development. The entire purpose of NCLB was close the achievement yet one major tool for doing so is being singled out as frivolous and unnecessary.
Moving into the future, educators and administrators must realize that in order for students to receive a truly well-rounded education, one which is not based solely on test scores but on true learning, funding for arts programs must be restored and in many cases increased. By re-integrating arts programs back into the standard curriculum, students and their schools will reap the many benefits of learning and participating in the arts. Students' academic achievement will improve dramatically, standardized text scores will rise, and due to this schools will be able to have greater access to federal, state and local funding for their schools. The arts should no longer be treated as a fringe course of study that can be limited or dropped in order to save money. Nor should the arts be treated as less important to students' overall educational experience than the core subjects of reading and mathematics. Arts programs have earned their rightful place in the American classroom and hopefully they will stay there.

Works Cited

"About Us." National Endowment for the Arts. Web. 05 Dec. 2010.

"About Vh1 Save The Music Foundation | VH1 Save The Music." VH1 Save The Music|VH1 Save The Music Foundation. Web. 05 Dec. 2010.

Azzam, Amy. "Why Creativity Now?." Journal of Educational Leadership. 67.1 (2009): 22-26. Print.

“Do Schools Kill Creativity?.” Online Posting. Youtube. 5 July 2006. Web. 20 October 2010.

Drake, Kimberly. "U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan Reinforces Importance of the Arts in Schools." U.S. Department of Education. 08 Aug. 2009. Web. 05 Dec. 2010.

Kreinin-Souccar, Miriam. "City Schools Arts Funding Drops Dramatically." Crain's New York 01 Jul 2010, Print.

Mann, Eric. "Creativity: The Essence of Mathematics." Journal for the Education of the Gifted. 30.2 (2006): 236-260. Print.

McNeil, Linda M. Contradictions of School Reform: Educational Costs of Standardized Testing. New York: Routledge, 2000. Print.

Robinson, Ken. Out of Our Minds: Learning to Be Creative. Oxford:Capstone, 2001. Print.