How are arts programs in the United States being affected by the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation? The U.S. Congress asked the General Accountability Office (GAO) Congress to answer four questions about the effect of NCLB on student access to arts education.

Results published in February 2009 indicated that about 90 percent of American elementary school teachers reported no change in time for the arts between the 2004-2005 and 2006-2007 school years, and 4 percent reported an increase of time.

According the report’s findings, however, “about 7 percent [of schools] reported a decrease, and the GAO identified statistically significant differences across school characteristics in the percentage of teachers reporting that the time spent on arts education had decreased. Teachers at schools identified as needing improvement and those with higher percentages of minority students were more likely to report a reduction in time spent on the arts”.

The report, “Access to Arts Education,” can be read in its entirety at http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09286.pdf

Don Hodges, a teacher-educator who read the report, commented that “while it is gratifying to see in the GAO’s recent report that the majority of elementary schools experienced no change in student access to music education, those who experienced the largest decreases were schools with higher percentages of low-income or minority students. It is vital that all students have access to high-quality music education as part of their regular school activities.”

“Also, in drawing conclusions from research that the effects of music education on student outcomes are inconclusive, it is curious that the GAO reduced 1,000 published reports to just seven studies included in the report and that all seven came from the same issue of one journal published nine years ago. Surely this does not adequately represent the latest and best research findings available,” Hodges added.

Read the report at http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09286.pdf and then add your comments to the Higher Education Forum found on the MENC Web site at http://menc.org/forums/viewforum.php?id=9.

MENC member Donald A. Hodges, Ph.D., is the Covington Distinguished Professor of Music and directs the Music Research Institute in the School of Music of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Check out the Music Research Institute’s Web site at http://www.uncg.edu/mus/mri/

--Ella Wilcox, March 11, 2009, © MENC: The National Association for Music Education (www.menc.org)