Arts Education in Public Secondary Schools

In (secondary) schools, arts education is typically provided through elective courses that are taught by arts specialists. The secondary school questionnaire therefore asked respondents to answer a series of questions about the extent to which each of five arts subjects-creative writing, dance, drama/theatre, music, and visual arts-are being taught in schools. The questions asked for the following information on each subject: whether the school offers separate instruction in it, the number of separate courses offered, the number of full- and part-time teachers, the approximate total enrollment during the 1993-94 school year, the number of specially equipped spaces, labs, or studios allocated for teaching, and whether the district provides written curriculum guidelines in the subject.

How Extensive is ?

Of the five arts subjects included in this survey, music and visual arts are offered in almost all public secondary schools, findings similar to those of the elementary survey (Figure 9). About half of all public secondary schools offer separate instruction in both creative writing and drama/theatre. Relatively few secondary schools offer separate instruction in dance.

Whether or not secondary schools offer separate instruction in each of the arts subjects is related to school size and the metropolitan status of schools (Table 5)¹. In general, classes in the arts are more likely to be offered in larger schools and in schools in central cities and urban fringe areas. However, schools in different geographic regions are more likely to offer certain arts subjects than others. For example, visual arts is offered by more schools in the Northeast than by those in the Southeast or West; music is included in more schools in the Central part of the country than those in the West.

More important than whether schools offer instruction in particular arts subjects, however, is the extensiveness of their arts programs, which can be examined along several dimensions. The number of separate courses offered in a particular arts subject is a good indicator of the depth to which students can pursue the subject. The number of teachers available to teach the arts is indicative of accessibility to expertise. Finally, a school's commitment to offering quality arts programs is evidenced by providing teachers and students with specially equipped classrooms, labs, studios, and practice rooms.

The findings on all of these indicators reinforced those reported above regarding the extent to which public secondary schools provide separate instruction in each arts subject. More courses are offered in music and visual arts than in other arts subjects, with an average of 4.5 courses in music and 5.0 in visual arts (Table 6). Likewise, more teachers are teaching music and visual arts than drama/theatre and dance. While schools report more teachers of creative writing than those of visual arts, these data may be somewhat misleading because schools may have included English teachers, rather than exclusively teachers who specialize in creative writing, when reporting the number of teachers. Finally, while schools allocate approximately one specially equipped space each for instruction in drama/theatre, creative writing, and dance, significantly more space is provided for music and visual arts. The higher number of rooms reported for music reflects the fact that individual practice rooms were included as specially equipped spaces.

¹ See appendix B, Table 16, for a similar table of elementary school data

Top