Many students that are involved in the arts have been found to experience gains in math, reading, cognitive ability, critical thinking, and verbal skill. New National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) research shows that low socioeconomic students who had art experiences in high school were ten percent more likely to complete a high school calculus course than low socioeconomic students with low arts exposure, which is 33 versus 23 percent. Students with access to the arts in high school were three times more likely than students who lacked those experiences to earn a bachelor's degree. When it comes to participating in extracurricular activities in high school, high-arts, low socioeconomic students are much more likely also to take part in intramural …show more content…
Baum and Steven V. Owen, “ Using Art Processes to Enhance Academic Self-Regulation” connecting student learning in the arts to a wide spectrum of academic and social benefits. This research claims that what students learn in the arts may help them to master other subjects, such as reading, math or social studies. Students who participate in arts learning experiences often improve their achievement in other realms of learning and life. A study that supports Susan M. Baum and Steven V. Owen’s claim is the “Advanced Placement Revisited” done by Patricia Lund Casserly from The College Board, a nonprofit organization that works to make sure all students in the American educational system are college ready, found that, “students who take four years of arts and music classes while in high school score 91 points better on their SAT exams than students who took only a half year or less (scores averaged 1070 among students in arts educations compared to 979 for students without arts education.) While school districts might be tempted to think the arts a frivolous part of the educational system, this report suggests …show more content…
It’s estimated that since 2008, more than 80 percent of schools nationwide experienced cuts to their budgets.”says Metla. In order to compensate for the lack of funds, art programs were partially or completely taken from these school districts. “ During the 1999-2000 school year, 20 percent of schools offered dance and theatre classes, but in the 2009-10 school year, only 3 percent of schools allocated funds for dance classes, and only 4 percent taught theatre... the number of schools offering visual arts programs dropped from 87 percent in 1999-2000 to 83 percent in 2009-10. In 2013, public schools in major cities, including Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC, are still struggling with budget cuts.” In addition to less money being spent on education because of the recession, various government policies, including the No Child Left Behind Act and the Common Core State Standards have placed greater emphasis on core subjects, such as math and reading. By doing this they have made arts education irrelevant in schools. In light of these policies, school districts began re-directing funds toward subjects that require standardized testing in order to increase the