The Arts: Proven to Boost Test Scores, Creativity, Confidence and Self Esteem
Now in its 14th successful year in Utah schools, the Art Works for Kids model used by the Beverley Taylor Sorenson Arts Learning Program demonstrates a powerful educational truth: children who have exposure to the arts as part of their curriculum outperform their counterparts on an academic level by 18 to 27 percent on standardized testing. What’s more, these “arts-rich” students show increased levels of creativity, confidence and self-esteem, which may prove to be the most valuable long-term assets of their educations.
On a national level, the Arts Education Partnership and the President’s Committee on Arts and Humanities partnered to research the effect of arts on education and report their findings.
Some of the most important findings of the study include:
- Significantly higher test scores on standardized tests
- The arts reach students not ordinarily reached in ways not normally used. This keeps tardies and truancies, and eventually dropouts rates, down.
- Students connect better with one another, resulting in greater camaraderie, fewer fights, less racism and reduced use of hurtful sarcasm.
- The arts change the environment to one of discovery. This can reignite the love of learning in students tired of being filled up with facts.
- Arts provide challenges for student at all levels, from delayed to gifted—students can find their own levels automatically.
- Students learn to become sustained, self-directed learners, not a repository of facts useful only for the next high-stakes test.
- Students of lower socio-economic status gain as much or more from arts instruction as those of higher socio-economic status.
Source: Eric Jensen, Art With the Brain in Mind. Virginia: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. 2001.
The Local Effect
The results of research completed in Utah schools implementing the Art Works for Kids approach mirror those reported in the Arts Education Partnership study.
For 14 years, Jackson Elementary has invested in an integrated arts education program centered on music education, experience and performance.
The outcome has been remarkable both academically and in other areas of behavior and performance. In a comparative study with another elementary school having similar demographic, economic and social characteristics but no integrated arts program, Jackson Elementary standardized test scores were 16 percent higher in language arts and were 24 percent higher in math. Although Jackson Elementary begins music training in pre-kindergarten, the standardized test tracking does not begin until the third grade. In 2006 (the last year of the study), Jackson Elementary achieved the state level of performance and met adequate yearly progress (AYP) standards for No Child Left Behind, while the comparative school failed on both measures.
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