John M. Eger postulates that those cities and those centers of learning and success will build upon the link between art, culture, and commercial enterprise. The Role of Art and Culture Recently, students took a test called the National Assessment of Education Progress. One portion of that test included knowledge of the arts.

….administrators at 260 public and private schools were asked how much time they devoted to art and music instruction, and 7,900 eighth-grade students were tested on art and music concepts, a small sample compared with other federal assessments. For example, in 2007, the department tested 700,000 students in reading and math, and 29,000 in history. The small number of students tested, and the 11-year gap since the most recent federal arts test, limited the assessment’s usefulness for reaching conclusions about achievement trends, federal testing officials said. But one indicator showed a clear decline in student exposure to the arts: 16 percent of students reported having gone with their class to an art museum, gallery or exhibit in the last year. That was down from 22 percent in 1997. Arts Education Lags

As state budgets slim down and as school districts pare staff and expenses, one area which faces cuts is the arts. Many attempt to defend arts spending because of perceived academic achievement by students who have a robust grounding in the arts over those than have not been exposed to the arts. There is a case to be made of art for art’s own sake.

A Boston Globe article looks at both the academic argument and the argument that art education is valuable because creative thinking and creative problem solving are byproducts. Art is Important

We don't need the arts in our schools to raise mathematical and verbal skills - we already target these in math and language arts. We need the arts because in addition to introducing students to aesthetic appreciation, they teach other modes of thinking we value. For students living in a rapidly changing world, the arts teach vital modes of seeing, imagining, inventing, and thinking. If our primary demand of students is that they recall established facts, the children we educate today will find themselves ill-equipped to deal with problems like global warming, terrorism, and pandemics.

In a time when every penny of expenditure must be justified, it is good to have arguments that the financial types will understand.

There is another very powerful reason to introduce children to art and culture and that is the arts nourish a person’s soul and spirit. Art is of value simply because it is art.

“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.”

~Pablo Picasso

Dr Wilda says this about that ©