[Dixielandjazz] The Arts and education

[Steve Barbone]

For those involved with jazz in school programs, the following is more
ammunition to get your program into the system.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone

Guggenheim Study Suggests Arts Education Benefits Literacy Skills

NY TIMES - By RANDY KENNEDY - July 27, 2006

In an era of widespread cuts in public-school art programs, the question has
become increasingly relevant: does learning the arts help children become
better students in other areas?

A study to be released today by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum suggests
that it does, citing improvements in a range of literacy skills among
students who took part in a program in which the Guggenheim sends artists
into schools. The study, now in its second year, interviewed hundreds of New
York City third graders, some of whom had participated in the Guggenheim
program, called Learning Through Art, and others who did not.

The study found that students in the program performed better in six
categories of literacy and critical thinking skills ‹ including thorough
description, hypothesizing and reasoning ‹ than did students who were not in
the program. The children were assessed as they discussed a passage in a
children¹s book, Cynthia Kadohata¹s ³Kira-Kira,² and a painting by Arshile
Gorky, ³The Artist and His Mother.²

The results of the study, which are to be presented today and tomorrow at a
conference at the Guggenheim, are likely to stimulate debate at a time when
the federal education law known as No Child Left Behind has led schools to
increase class time spent on math and reading significantly, often at the
expense of other subjects, including art.

Yet the study also found that the program did not help improve students¹
scores on the city¹s standardized English language arts test, a result that
the study¹s creators said they could not fully explain. They suggested that
the disparity might be related to the fact that the standardized test is
written while the study¹s interviews were oral.

³We purposely chose to have students talk to us instead of writing because
we thought they would show language skills, not purely reading and writing
skills,² said Johanna Jones, a senior associate with Randi Korn and
Associates, a museum research company conducting the study over three years
with a $640,000 grant from the federal Department of Education.

Ms. Jones said that the study, which graded students¹ responses as they
talked about the painting and the passage from the book, found essentially
the same results during the 2005-6 school year as it did during the 2004-5
school year. ³We really held our breath waiting for this year¹s results, and
they turned out to almost exactly the same ‹ which means that last year¹s
don¹t seem to have been an anomaly,² she said. ³That¹s a big deal in this
world.²

While it is unknown exactly how learning about art helps literacy skills,
she said, ³the hypothesis is that the use of both talking about art and
using inquiry to help students tease apart the meaning of paintings helps
them learn how to tease apart the meanings of texts, too. They apply those
skills to reading.²

The categories of literacy and critical thinking skills were devised by the
research company with the help of a group of advisers from Columbia
University, New York University and the city¹s Department of Education,
among other institutions.

The Guggenheim program, originally called Learning to Read Through the Arts,
was created by a museum trustee in 1970, when New York schools were cutting
art and music programs. Since it began, it has involved more than 130,000
students in dozens of public schools. The museum dispatches artists who
spend one day a week at schools over a 10- or 20-week period helping
students and teachers learn about and make art. Groups of students are also
taken to the Guggenheim to see exhibitions.

Officials at the Guggenheim said they hoped the study would give ammunition
to educators in schools and museums around the country who are seeking more
money and classroom time for arts education.

³Basically, this study is a major contribution to the field of art and
museum education,² said Kim Kanatani, the Guggenheim¹s director of
education. ³We think it confirms what we as museum education professionals
have intuitively known but haven¹t ever had the resources to prove.²