Op-Ed: The Arts Will Help School Accountability
Mariale Hardiman
Assistant Dean, Urban School Partnerships
Chair, Department of Interdisciplinary Studies in Education
John Hopkins University School of Education
410-516-6550 (w); 410-591-3608 (c)
As the federal government revisits the provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act, efforts to reform American schools should begin with changing the ideas of policy-makers about how to measure educational success. Our current system of judging schools based primarily on achievement scores in reading and mathematics is moving American public education in the wrong direction. It has resulted in a well-documented narrowing of the curriculum, reducing time spent in the social sciences and—at the same time—it is diminishing opportunities for many children to participate in the arts. This is especially true in urban settings where budgets are tight and many educators believe that children require more time to work in the tested subject areas. These practices are inconsistent with our nation’s need for workers capable of collaboration, innovation and creative problem-solving. Those are the very skills identified as necessary for the workforce of the future by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills.
Many teachers, confronting continual pressure to improve last year’s scores, are induced to preparing students to perform on tests, not to develop their creativity. As a former principal of a large K-8 school in an urban school district, I became adept at “data-based decision-making” to advance the school’s test scores. The term “continuous improvement” meant constant fine-tuning of the instructional program after analyzing the school’s test data through every lens. As a result, scores on the yearly assessments rose each year, and the faculty became expert at preparing for them.
Yet, despite the growing numbers on the charts, something basic was amiss. Reducing the picture of the school to a few mere numbers each year seemed to be a limited view of the school experiences the children deserved. While the American public should hold schools accountable for student achievement, parents should demand more from schooling than filling in correct answers on a test.
As I looked for ways to expand our school’s vision and determine how children best acquire, retain, apply knowledge, I began to examine research in the cognitive neurosciences. While the number of studies conducted in school settings was thin, I applied broad-brush strokes from the field to develop a teaching model for my faculty. When we implemented the model, we found that instruction that provided rich classroom experiences and long-term learning seemed to require infusing the arts into teaching techniques. As teachers designed arts-integrated lessons that fostered creative thinking, a transformation occurred in the school. Lessons became more engaging, children embraced learning more, teachers enjoyed teaching more, and parents were more satisfied with their child’s schooling.
Our faculty looked to the literature for evidence that would shed light on how the arts enhance learning. The Arts Education Partnership’s publications Critical Links (2002) and Third Space (2005) provided insights. In March of 2008, the Dana Foundation’s Arts and Cognition Consortium released a series of studies conducted by leading neuroscientists from six universities across the country. The findings demonstrated a “tight correlation” between exposure to the arts and improved skills in cognition and attention for learning.
A summit on May 6th sponsored by the Johns Hopkins University School of Education, of which I am now a part, provided a unique venue for researchers to share current findings and dialogue with educators to determine future directions for research. The focus of the summit continued at the Learning & the Brain Conference in Washington D.C on the topic the Creative Brain.
The new focus on arts and creativity could not come at a better time. The Obama administration’s attention to education could provide the impetus for reshaping what we expect from schools and how to measure that expectation. To that end, I propose that federal and state policy-makers expand their view of what constitutes an effective school. A report card, similar to the New York City model, would provide a clearer picture of the health and vitality of a school.
The report card should include not only reading and math achievement scores, but also growth of those scores over time, factors of school climate and consumer satisfaction, breadth of curriculum offerings, and classroom observations focused on creative teaching strategies. It should also measure the degree to which students participate in the arts and other programs such as physical education, athletics, before and after school clubs, and extracurricular activities. Targeting attention and accountability to a broader vision of a school, including how arts are embedded into children’s school experiences, will lead to real school reform.
As a school principal, I learned that the arts are a powerful tool for enhancing creativity and student achievement. Neurological and cognitive sciences will surely continue to shed light on topics such as the affects of attention, memory, sleep, and emotions on thinking and learning. Future research in this field must be informed by the practical needs of educators. And the influence of the arts on cognition, thinking, and learning must be part of this research agenda and become a central focus in educational policy-making.