Author: Galligan, Ann M.

Publication Year: 2002

Media Type: Report

Summary:

The Center for Arts and Culture has published a year-long series of issue papers entitled Art, Culture, and the National Agenda to demonstrate how public policy decisions affect our nation's cultural life. This paper, the fifth in the series, looks at the relationship of education, creativity, and the 21st-century workforce.

Abstract:

The Center for Arts and Culture has published a year-long series of issue papers entitled Art, Culture, and the National Agenda to demonstrate how public policy decisions affect our nation's cultural life. This paper, the fifth in the series, looks at the relationship of education, creativity, and the 21st-century workforce.

The issue paper makes the following recommendations:

1. The U.S. needs a comprehensive strategy that links education and workforce development at federal, state, and local levels, and which includes education in the arts and humanities (K-12) as its principal cornerstone.
2. The federal government should show leadership and provide funding for research that would clarify the degree to which arts education helps students achieve higher grades, score better on standardized tests, and have higher attendance rate in schools.
3. Federal, state, and local education, arts, and humanities agencies and entities should work more closely together to learn from the best and worst practices in schools and school districts, and to identify common elements from which models might be developed and disseminated.
4. Community leaders should survey their communities to expand their work in helping schools develop and teach the arts and humanities. They should also strengthen their entrance requirements in these respects.

CONTENTS

• Art, Culture, and the National Agenda.
• Executive Summary.
• Creativity, Culture, and the Workforce.
• The Roles of Arts Education in Achieving National Objectives.
• Arts Education: Actors and Programs.
• The Creative Workforce: Issues and Conditions.
• Policy Recommendations.
• Notes.
• Works Cited.

Arts & Intersections:

Categories: Creative Workforce, Arts Education