10 ARTS EDUCATION FAST FACTS

Students with high arts participation and low socioeconomic status have a 4 percent dropout rate—five times lower than their low socioeconomic status peers.[1]

Students who take four years of arts and music classes score an average of over 150 points higher on the SAT than students who take only one-half year or less.[2]

Low-income students are highly engaged in the arts are twice as likely to graduate college as their peers with no arts education.[3]

A recent study showed that arts education experiences reduce the proportion of students in school receiving disciplinary infractions by 3.6 percent.^[4]

91 percent of Americans believe that the arts are vital to providing a well-rounded education.^[5]

19 percent of superintendents used the Title IV well-rounded education provision of the Every Child Succeeds Act (ESSA) to fund music and the arts. This is more than the percentages who used Title IV to fund physical education, foreign language, and civics combined. ^[6]

The arts are recognized as a core academic subject under the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and, as of 2020, all 50 states plus the District of Columbia have adopted standards for learning in the arts.^[7]

Two-thirds of public-school teachers believed that the fine arts are among subjects getting crowded out of the school day by a focus on math and English.[8]

Black and Hispanic students lack access to quality arts education compared to their White peers, earning an average of 30 and 25 percent fewer arts credits, respectively.[9]

As of 2020, only 19 states include arts as a key area of their state accountability system, and just 13 have done a statewide report on arts education in the last 5 years.^[10] The last comprehensive national arts education report by the U.S. Department of Education is over 10 years old.