There is scant evidence on the level of arts education available in U.S. public schools and how this has changed over time. In this paper, I present new evidence on broad trends in arts education in U.S. public schools from 1988 through 2018 using nationally representative data from the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) and the National Teachers…

Due to the outbreak of COVID-19, which requires the majority of K-16 education to be temporarily taught online. While unfamiliarity with digital technologies may make the transition to online teaching difficult, the world's sudden dependence on distance learning has sparked the pressing need to implement virtual art education that is efficient and…

Every student deserves arts instruction for its own sake, as an essential ingredient to a well-rounded education. Yet arts education adds value for a whole host of other educational purposes: among them, enhanced writing and reading, ability to retain information, problem solving, and critical thinking. Interest in models of whole-school reform…

In this article, the author challenges the recurrent theory-practice divide in art teacher preparation and its splintering implications for sustaining certain pedagogical practices in K-12 schools. Specifically, the author focuses on the pedagogical practice of emergent curriculum and the derivative curricular cycle of listening, observing,…

Art educators should be concerned with teaching their students to make critical connections between the classroom and the outside world. One effective way to make these critical connections is to provide students with the opportunity to engage in community-based art endeavors. In this article, three university art educators discuss engaging…

The United States has a long proud history of innovation and creativity. This is one of its greatest assets and what will give its workforce an edge in an increasingly competitive global economy. But to do this, individuals need to prepare the next generation of inventors, designers and creators. Arts education is a solution to many of these…

Last spring, students from several North Carolina middle schools were invited to participate in the annual Celebrate the Arts festival in Columbus Country. Larry Hewett, a local art teacher, had been selected to instruct the middle-school students. Larry's River Rock Circles project was made as the starting point for the Celebrate the Arts…

A remarkably consistent picture of the value of the arts in a comprehensive Pre-K-grade 12 education emerges from a review of two decades of theory and policy recommendations about arts education. Over the past decade, the National Governors Association, the Education Commission of the States, the National Association of State Boards of Education,…

In this article, the author describes a four-day teaching artist workshop at North Carolina's Penland School of Crafts. Led by Dr. Madeleine R. Grumet of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, participants of the seminar undertook the pleasurable job of examining the ins and outs of teaching visual art. Their morning was modeled on a…

This dissertation focuses on the narratives of four rural art educators of the Foothills of Western North Carolina. These women are the first art educators in this area in public education. They are often viewed as the invisible women in art who support community arts, much like the "invisible women in art history." From the view of the…

In schools across the United States, an increasingly familiar sight is that of professional artists coming together with students and teachers for the purpose of learning in and through the arts. Musicians, dancers, visual artists, actors, storytellers, and others are finding exciting new professional opportunities as more and more schools are…