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The purpose of this study was to investigate advocacy influences that may impact school arts programs using data from the 2009–10 National Center for Education Statistics elementary and secondary school surveys on arts education. Regression models were employed to assess the relative effectiveness of variables representing community support, administrators’ support, having arts educators in leadership roles, and school climate more generally as predictors of principals’ reports of the adequacy of funding, instructional time, and number of arts specialists for arts education. Additional models were examined to determine whether these effects would remain after controlling for minority status, poverty status, and school community type. Parent/community support, including the presence of arts specialists in school leadership roles and having an arts curriculum specialist/program coordinator, had the most pronounced effects on the reported adequacy of resources. Student interest in and demand for arts education, the inclusion of arts course grades in secondary students’ GPA, and the number of arts events elementary school principals attended also showed significant effects.
Peter Miksza (Wed,) studied this question.