Education Reform in and through the Arts

Gordon M. Ambach, Executive Director, Council of Chief State School Officers

In November 1992, American voters elected a new president, one who had conducted one of the most extraordinary campaigns in recent history. The credit for overcoming what seemed to be insurmountable odds and innumerable distractions was given to the campaign's strategist, James Carville. One the wall above Carville's desk was a sign that read, "The economy, stupid." It was a sign for Carville and his colleagues reminding them not to drift from the campaign's central message. As we advocate for education reform, we need a similar reminder to focus our message: "The arts, stupid." If the place of the arts is to be central to learning, then we must ensure that the arts are at the center of American education reform.

Given this prerequisite, there are five major areas of education reform in which the arts should figure prominently:

1. in establishing new goals for learning and creating standards as best practices;
   
2. in developing new assessments for measuring progress towards those goals;
   
3. in promoting higher-order learning through interdisciplinary studies and self-discipline;
   
4. in applying the wizardry of technology to learning, using imagery and sound to communicate as never before; and
   
5. in living the motto, E pluribus unum, "out of many comes one," celebrating both diversity and unity through the arts.

These five areas should be thought of as planks of a platform in the campaign for the arts in education reform. Regarding the first plank, over the past five years there has been a remarkable, positive change in the American public's attitude toward the establishment of national goals and standards for education. Ten years ago, no one dreamed that we would ever have national education goals. Even five years ago, no one thought that the president and the governors could develop six national education goals. The place of the arts within these goals has been unclear; but, rather than focus on this ambiguity, we should simply declare that the arts are part of Goals 2000, the national education goals developed by the nation's governors and President Bush, and then behave accordingly.

As a result of the election and the change in administrations, some education policies will also change. But, the National Education Goals will remain; after all, President Clinton, the governor of Arkansas at the time the goals were written, was one of their principal architects. The president is expected to build his education programs around these national goals, and there are indications that the arts are included. For example, although Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley has not issued a formal statement on the arts, at his confirmation hearing, he said, "It would be my hope that, as the president-elect becomes a true leader in education, he and I would provide the leadership to let states and local school districts realize that arts in education is an absolute necessity. If, in this day and time, we do not tap into the creative side of a young person's brain in every possible way, then we are not going to have the innovation and the economic and cultural growth experience that this country must have."

But, the easy part is putting ideas such as these in the National Education Goals. The hard part is developing the objectives and the standards, and building the capacity in this nation so that, by the year 2000 and beyond, we can achieve them. The way in which we include or exclude a subject within our national expectations for education sends a powerful message that influences the media, government officials, and general discourse on what we value for our children and the country. How we engage the national education dialogue will determine whether the arts ride the wave of education reform or become submerged in its wake.

We must be clear that setting standards is not equivalent to setting minimum requirements. In business, the term standard means "best practice," and this is what we must ensure is understood with regard to the arts. Further, we must be prepared to renew our standards periodically. The debate surrounding standards and goals itself generates creativity and renewal, which leads to new objectives and practices. The standards in the arts that we are now struggling to develop will need to be revised continuously. Renewal and revision will keep the arts in the public debate and on the national agenda.

As Americans, we must begin to set our education standards in an international context. We have much to learn from other nations about their educational systems, particularly at a time when most American measures of educational assessment are being called into question. While international assessments of learning in geography, science, mathematics, and computers all have been conducted, there has yet to be an international assessment of learning in the arts. In developing new assessments for measuring progress toward these goals and standards, it is the arts educators, and those who assess the arts, who can take the lead. Portfolios and performance assessments in the arts are long-standing assessment models that can be used in other areas of learning.

Perhaps the most significant element of education reform to emerge in the past several years has been the focus on developing higher-order thinking skills in all children. The new industrial environment requires workers who can grasp complex material and organize their own work so that they are more productive. Students must learn to combine knowledge and process to be inventive and solve problems. Learning in and through the arts is an essential vehicle to this end. To develop higher-order thinking skills, students should be exposed to different disciplines and forms of study. Discipline-based arts education presents a combination of aesthetics, criticism, history, and production that develops students' capacities to integrate what is learned in each of these dimensions. The discipline-based approach connects the study of history, science, geography, literature, mathematics, and the arts. The concept of the discipline-based approach is a major force in the debate surrounding interdisciplinary studies in other fields. The reforms that are under way in the arts are central to changes in interdisciplinary pedagogy within the overall education reform movement.

Communication technologies are playing new and important roles in such areas as creating and conveying messages through art forms. Yet, in teaching students to communicate, the focus remains on reading, writing, speaking, and listening, rather than on creating and interpreting images, movement, sounds and, emotion. But, imagery is central to television and the other powerful communication technologies that have a special influence on young Americans. In education reform, the expansion of learning technologies in the schools must be related directly to increasing a student's capacity to understand and use images, sounds, and data in technological communication. In other words, learning in the arts is essential to the effective use of technology, which is in turn central to the capacity of modern communication.

The education reform movement is struggling to help students to understand the value of E pluribus unum; learning in the arts is central to that understanding. American students of diverse backgrounds need to know and cherish their own history, while at the same time sharing the common experiences that make us one people. The arts offer a most impressive means by which we may perpetuate and convey the diversity of our cultural roots. An understanding of African-American, Latino, Asian-American, and Native-American traditions is, for example, conveyed with unique impact through the arts. The arts unify and represent our commonality while celebrating our diversity.

As we recall great eras of accomplishment, we think of Egyptian pyramids, Baroque music, Greek sculpture, Aztec temples, Chinese ceramics, and African carvings, to name but a few. These accomplishments serve to communicate the dreams, beliefs, aspirations, and accomplishments of our ancestors. Our culture will be known and remembered by its arts. If we hope that our legacy will have the esteem of great ages past, we must place the arts at the center of our culture and at the center of our learning.

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