Research Links the Arts with Student Academic Gains

State and national accountability initiatives are forcing educational administrators to seek curricular interventions that will yield the greatest improvement in students' academic performance in the least amount of time. Though volumes of documentation regarding the value of the arts in education line the shelves of professional libraries and support for the arts as part of a comprehensive educational program is the subject of articles, speeches, and symposia, when push comes to shove, when resources are precious, and when test results are published in newspapers, arts are the first to go (Tambucci 2006). Ironically, the arts—disciplines that theorists, as well as teachers in the trenches, claim to improve higher-order thinking skills—are the very programs that typically are eliminated from the school district's budget when money is limited (Berube 1999). If the arts are responsible for helping to create strong thinkers, then why are school leaders hesitant to fund programs featuring the arts?