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Q&A
Goals and statistics for improving arts education participation
1:05:32
ยท
97 sec
Paul Thompson from the NYC Department of Education discusses the current state of arts education participation and their approach to improvement. He provides statistics on arts course offerings in grades 1-5 and explains their strategy for supporting schools in meeting state requirements.
- 92.5% of schools in grades 1-5 are serving at least one arts course
- Only 24.4% of schools offer all four recommended art forms
- Focus on supporting schools to meet state requirements through resources and professional development
- Emphasis on developing a new mindset within the principal community about the value of arts education
Rita Joseph
1:05:32
Have you set any goals to improve the amount of participation in quality of arts education in our schools at system wide school districts, individual school levels?
Paul Thompson
1:05:46
So I I wanted to just be clear.
1:05:50
I want to just give you some numbers and then talk to you about sort of how we're thinking about it.
1:05:55
And so when we think about schools in grades one through five, because this is where, know, in understanding the arts recommendations from the state and how they're being employed, it can at times be a bit of a hairball.
1:06:11
And so in grades one through five, ninety two point five percent of schools are serving at least one arts course.
1:06:21
Right?
1:06:22
The ideal would be that they have access to all four which of that only 24.4% are meeting that.
1:06:30
But again, these are recommendations from the state.
1:06:33
And so we like to really think about through a data perspective, are schools meeting the state requirements?
1:06:41
And if they are, how can we continue to support them so that they continue to do that work?
1:06:47
And if they're not, how are we thinking about moving in and supporting them to either provide resources, professional development?
1:06:54
Again, so much of this revolves around developing a new mindset within the principal community.
1:07:01
No one hates the arts, but not everybody understands the exact value of what it does in creating safe space for students in your building.