Tomorrow marks the official end of National Arts Education Week. One week, out of fifty-two, feels like table scraps in an age when the national struggle to make sure every child has access to artistic and cultural resources is so severe.
There is no disputing the fact that learning artistic disciplines has a giant, measurable, positive impact on the lives of young people. We have data that proves this. Piles and piles of it!
So why are so many kids slipping through the cracks, deprived of equitable access to an arts education? Two words: money and myopia.
Over several decades, an increased focus on standardized tests combined with extensive funding cuts have decimated arts education in U.S. public schools and created vast inequities between schools in wealthy and poor districts. Too often, if parents want their kids to have access to an arts education, they have to pay for it. But this cannot be a precious benefit for the 1%.
The U.S. Department of Education’s most recent decennial report on arts education shows that theatre education is offered in only 4% of primary schools and only 45% of secondary schools. Furthermore, as reported by Americans for the Arts, African‐American and Hispanic students are getting less than half the access to arts education than their peers. This situation has created serious pipeline issues which have negatively impacted talent development, audience development, and diversity in the arts. Personally, as President of an organization with the mission of making sure that we have the next generation on the stage, behind the scenes, and in the audience, this is troubling.
However, this problem extends far beyond the arts community; it is a problem that cuts to the core of many of the challenges we are facing as a nation. In denying such a giant swath of our young people this specific type of enrichment, we are sending the next generation into the world not sufficiently prepared to tackle the challenges we have created for them. Why? Here’s what we know about arts education, thanks to the aforementioned piles and piles of well-researched data. It has the power to:
· Improve literacy
· Boost math achievement
· Motivate students to learn
· Develop critical thinking skills
· Improve a school’s culture
· Equip students to be creative
· Strengthen students’ problem solving ability
· Improve school attendance
· Teach collaboration skills
· Improve communication skills
· Increase leadership capacity
· Strengthen perseverance
· Facilitate cross-cultural understanding
And that doesn’t begin the cover the full impact of a truly thriving artistic ecology. Communities the world over consistently benefit, dramatically, when cultural programs and organizations move in. The arts lead to improved economics, more jobs, and less crime. The list goes on.
We must stop viewing arts education as a luxury item. Let’s start seeing it for what it is: an essential tool for developing minds, hearts, and communities that needs to be widely available for our next generation to take advantage of.
If you have the means, I urge you to consider helping to fund arts education programs. There are organizations in every community across the nation with the goal of providing high quality arts education resources, many of which are in great need of funding. At the American Theatre Wing, we have recently partnered with Andrew Lloyd Webber to create The Andrew Lloyd Webber Initiative. With $1.3 million in seed funding from his Foundation – and additional revenue from other sources (hint, hint) – this initiative will create a mechanism to direct funding to teachers and schools across the country who are in need of additional resources to create stronger theatre education programs, and to identify students who could most benefit from scholarship support for training and access to higher education.
This is an extension of the work Andrew’s Foundation has done, and continues to do, in his native England. As a young man, he was utterly transformed by the music classes he was afforded by virtue of the time and place in which he grew up.
If donating money is not an option, you can still insist that every child should have equal access to arts education by advocating with your local and national legislators. (For a virtual treasure trove of information on this subject, visit www.AmericansForTheArts.org)
Let’s work together to make sure that arts education is a priority for all 52 weeks of the year, every year.
Heather Hitchens is President of the American Theatre Wing. For more information on the Wing, and the Andrew Lloyd Webber Initiative, please visit www.AmericanTheatreWing.org.