Student access to arts education and the quality of such instruction in the nation's public schools continue to be of concern to policymakers, educators, and families. Specifically, research has focused on questions such as: To what extent do students receive instruction in the arts? Under what conditions is this instruction provided? What is the profile of arts education instructors? (Ruppert and Nelson 2006). This study is the third of its kind to be conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (nces) in the Institute of Education Sciences (ies), U.S. Department of Education, to provide national data that inform these issues. The first study was conducted in the 1994-95 school year to provide baseline data on public schools' approaches to arts education. The second study was conducted during the 1999-2000 school year to provide broader coverage of arts education issues by collecting the first national data on educational backgrounds, professional development activities, teaching loads, and instructional practices of elementary school teachers--self-contained classroom teachers, music specialists, and visual arts specialists. To update the information from a decade ago, Congress requested that the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Innovation and Improvement (oii) and nces conduct a new study that would borrow from and build on the previous studies. This study examines many of the issues from the previous studies, including the extent to which students received instruction in the arts; the facilities and resources available for arts education instruction; and the preparation, work environments, and instructional practices of music and visual arts specialists and non-arts classroom teachers. This study also addresses emerging issues such as the availability of curriculum-based arts education activities outside of regular school hours and the presence of school-community partnerships in the arts. In addition, the current study provides broader coverage of arts education instructors by including two new surveys for secondary music and visual arts specialists. Selected indicators on arts education in public elementary and secondary schools are organized into four sections, one for each arts education subject area--music, visual arts, dance, and drama/theatre. Using its Fast Response Survey System (frss), nces conducted the surveys during the 2009-10 school year, with the two school surveys and the collection of sampling lists for the teacher surveys starting in fall 2009. frss is a survey system designed to collect small amounts of issue-oriented data from a nationally representative sample of districts, schools, or teachers with minimal burden on respondents and within a relatively short period of time. The findings in this report have been chosen to demonstrate the range of information available from the frss study rather than to discuss all of the observed differences; they are not meant to emphasize any particular issue. The findings are based on self-reported data from public school principals and teachers. Where relevant, national findings are broken out by the poverty concentration at the school, measured as the percent of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. Appended are: (1) Technical Notes; and (2) Standard Errors for Text Tables and Figures. (Contains 63 tables, 27 figures and 16 footnotes.) [For "Supplemental Tables to the nces Report. Arts Education in Public Elementary and Secondary Schools: 1999-2000 and 2009-10 (nces 2012-014)," see ed530716.].

The Handbook of Arts Education and Special Education brings together, for the first time in a single reference volume, policy, research, and practices in special education and arts education synthesized to inform stakeholders across a broad spectrum of education. This handbook encompasses arts education for students with disabilities, from pre-K through transition to postsecondary education and careers as well as community arts education, with particular attention to conceptual foundations; research-based practices; professional standards; students’ cognitive, artistic, and social growth; career education; and future directions for research and practice in special education and arts education.

Two purposes of this compendium are: (1) to recommend to researchers and funders of research promising lines of inquiry and study suggested by recent, strong studies of the academic and social effects of learning in the arts; and (2) to provide designers of arts education curriculum and instruction with insights found in the research that suggest strategies for deepening the arts learning experiences and are required to achieve the academic and social effects. The compendium is divided into six sections: (1) "Dance" (Summaries: Teaching Cognitive Skill through Dance; The Effects of Creative Dance Instruction on Creative and Critical Thinking of Seventh Grade Female Students in Seoul, Korea; Effects of a Movement Poetry Program on Creativity of Children with Behavioral Disorders; Assessment of High School Students' Creative Thinking Skills; The Impact of Whirlwind's Basic Reading through Dance Programs on First Grade Students' Basic Reading Skills; Art and Community; Motor Imagery and Athletic Expertise; Essay: Informing and Reforming Dance Education Research (K. Bradley)); (2) "Drama" (Summaries: Informing and Reforming Dance Education Research; The Effects of Creative Drama on the Social and Oral Language Skills of Children with Learning Disabilities; The Effectiveness of Creative Drama as an Instructional Strategy To Enhance the Reading Comprehension Skills of Fifth-Grade Remedial Readers; Role of Imaginative Play in Cognitive Development; A Naturalistic Study of the Relationship between Literacy Development and Dramatic Play in Five-Year-Old Children; An Exploration in the Writing of Original Scripts by Inner-City High School Drama Students; A Poetic/Dramatic Approach To Facilitate Oral Communication; Children's Story Comprehension as a Result of Storytelling and Story Dramatization; The Impact of Whirlwind's Reading Comprehension through Drama Program on 4th Grade Students' Reading Skills and Standardized Test Scores; The Effects of Thematic-Fantasy Play Training on the Development of Children's Story Comprehension; Symbolic Functioning and Children's Early Writing; Identifying Casual Elements in the Thematic-Fantasy Play Paradigm; The Effect of Dramatic Play on Children's Generation of Cohesive Text; Strengthening Verbal Skills through the Use of Classroom Drama; 'Stand and Unfold Yourself' A Monograph on the Shakespeare and Company Research Study; Nadie Papers No. 1, Drama, Language and Learning. Reports of the Drama and Language Research Project, Speech and Drama Center, Education Department of Tasmania; The Effects of Role Playing on Written Persuasion; 'You Can't Be Grandma: You're a Boy'; The Flight of Reading; Essay: Research on Drama and Theater in Education (J. Catterall)); (3) "Multi-Arts" (Summaries: Using Art Processes To Enhance Academic Self-Regulation; Learning in and through the Arts; Involvement in the Arts and Success in Secondary School; Involvement in the Arts and Human Development; Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education (CAPE); The Role of the Fine and Performing Arts in High School Dropout Prevention; Arts Education in Secondary Schools; Living the Arts through Language and Learning; Do Extracurricular Activities Protect against Early School Dropout?; Does Studying the Arts Engender Creative Thinking?; The Arts and Education Reform; Placing A+ in a National Context; The A+ Schools Program; The Arts in the Basic Curriculum Project; Mute Those Claims; Why the Arts Matter in Education Or Just What Do Children Learn When They Create an Opera?; SAT Scores of Students Who Study the Arts; Essay: Promising Signs of Positive Effects: Lessons from the Multi-Arts Studies (R. Horowitz; J. Webb-Dempsey)); (4) "Music" (Summaries: Effects of an Integrated Reading and Music Instructional Approach on Fifth-Grade Students' Reading Achievement, Reading Attitude, Music Achievement, and Music Attitude; The Effect of Early Music Training on Child Cognitive Development; Can Music Be Used To Teach Reading?; The Effects of Three Years of Piano Instruction on Children's Cognitive Development; Enhanced Learning of Proportional Math through Music Training and Spatial-Temporal Training; The Effects of Background Music on Studying; Learning To Make Music Enhances Spatial Reasoning; Listening to Music Enhances Spatial-Temporal Reasoning; An Investigation of the Effects of Music on Two Emotionally Disturbed Students' Writing Motivations and Writing Skills; The Effects of Musical Performance, Rational Emotive Therapy and Vicarious Experience on the Self-Efficacy and Self-Esteem of Juvenile Delinquents and Disadvantaged Children; The Effect of the Incorporation of Music Learning into the Second-Language Classroom on the Mutual Reinforcement of Music and Language; Music Training Causes Long-Term Enhancement of Preschool Children's Spatial-Temporal Reasoning; Classroom Keyboard Instruction Improves Kindergarten Children's Spatial-Temporal Performance; A Meta-Analysis on the Effects of Music as Reinforcement for Education/Therapy Objectives; Music and Mathematics; Essay: An Overview of Research on Music and Learning (L. Scripp)); (5) "Visual Arts" (Summaries: Instruction in Visual Art; The Arts, Language, and Knowing; Investigating the Educational Impact and Potential of the Museum of Modern Art's Visual Thinking Curriculum; Reading Is Seeing; Essay: Reflections on Visual Arts Education Studies (T. L. Baker)); and (6) "Overview" (Essay: The Arts and the Transfer of Learning (J. S. Catterall)). (BT)

Inspire and involve your adolescent students in active music-making with this second edition of Engaging Musical Practices: A Sourcebook for Middle School General Music. A practical and accessible resource, fourteen chapters lay out pedagogically sound practices for preservice and inservice music teachers. Beginning with adolescent development, authors outline clear, pedagogical steps for the creation of an inclusive curriculum that is age-appropriate age-relevant, and standards-based. You will find timely chapters on singing and playing instruments such as guitar, keyboard, ukulele, drumming and percussion. Other chapters address ways to make music with technology, strategies for students with exceptionalities, and the construction of instruments. Further, there are chapters on songwriting, interdisciplinary creative projects, co-creating musicals, infusing general music into the choral classroom, and standards-based assessment. The book is full of musical examples, sample rubrics, and resource lists. This second edition of Engaging Musical Practices: A Sourcebook for Middle School General Music is a necessity for any practitioner who teaches music to adolescent students or as a text for secondary general music methods courses.