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Soleil Rabsatt

Professor Perales

ENGL 100- 1485

10 September 2023

Lack of Art Education in Public Schools

Art education has been an integral part of society for centuries, offering students the

opportunity to learn and explore their creativity. It has played a crucial role in shaping

individuals' career paths, whether through immediate employment after high school or by

preparing them for higher education. However, there was one problem: according to the A-G

requirement, students had to be in 1 year of visual or performing arts. Some schools have the

lack of visual or even performing arts to provide to students, which could affect their chances of

going to college or even university.There are multiple reasons that art can be reduced, from

finances to paucity of knowledge about art education slowly dwindling . Why do public schools

have a lack of art education?

One of the reasons that there are a lack of art classes is from a financial standpoint.

Schools have money to provide a library, teachers, and a cafeteria. But there are times that

schools have no chance adding more classes to their school, and they can cause art classes to

dwindle. In one article talks about why there is a lack of art education around the area explains,

“...state approval in 1978 of Proposition 13, which restricted increases of property taxes that

account for one-third of a public school district's budget, was one of the first pivotal policy

changes that caused financial resources to shift away from arts instruction in schools (Baig 2)”.

Because of proposition 13, it can lead to an issue with art education and can be a factor to why

art education has been in a fall. Also, another reason is the lack of teachers in the specific field,
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without the money they couldn’t hire an art teacher or even art supplies. Outlines: if there are no

art teachers, there is no art class to provide to students. Not only that but another article explains

that she heard from multiple teachers that they had to pay for art supplies (Chavez 2). With that,

it was a prominent reason that art education has been declining slowly.However, this is not the

only reason why schools don’t have art education. The state government, president, or parents

can provide money to the school if the school wasn’t doing so great on education. So what also

can be a reason for the little to no art education?

Another reason is that it’s not like the other subjects, unlike arts, english, math, science,

and history are the most important subjects. They all have something that art doesn’t: tests and

exams. People stress over tests and exams because it makes up a big portion of the grade. Due to

other subjects, a lot of students focus on studying and may not focus on the art aspect, unless it’s

art history. “It was a gradual thing where arts (classes) just kind of started disappearing," said

Hampton… "I don't think there's a person in the state that said, 'Let's get rid of arts.' But the

focus was test scores, and arts don't get tested" (Biag 2). Because students focus on tests, they

would focus on history, science, math, english, etc. On that topic, from the same article, they also

explain that people could just graduate without arts if they aren’t going to college or even

colleges/universities that don't require arts (Biag 2). This can be another prominent reason that

arts aren’t in public schools, especially AI can also push people away from art careers due to

how long it takes to make an art via AI compared to how people do it on paper or even digitally.

But that doesn’t push people far away from the art career or the education, there more ways art

education is declining.

The final reason that art education is a lack in public education is because it’s never

talked about. One of the articles says in the title that it is a silent crisis and it’s never really been
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talked about all that much. Plus there are little to no articles that talk about the art education

situation. Thus, no one knows about not a lot of art education being in public schools. If in a

scenario it was talked about a little more, articles would pay more attention to the situation,

people would try to help those schools or better yet, school boards start to get an interest in

helping schools to get art education.

The reasons that could potentially cause a lack of art education in public schools was

from financial instability to art being not as important as the other subjects to not being talked

about all that much. There are more reasons out there like the effect of college requirements

might change in the future, arts don’t make as much money compared to other jobs for example a

nurse or scientist; or it doesn’t get people’s attention as much like the military. But the three that

were explained, are more prominent than the others. But has not been talked about in the years,

some people or the government are doing something about it, but that doesn’t change a bit on the

decline of art education. If people want to stop the decline, schools should do fundraisers for art

classes or donations. This could help the teacher if they need to pay for art supplies financially a

little. Maybe peaceful protest and,or show it on the news to give awareness to people who don’t

know art's decline is a crisis in the dark that would increase to more of an issue if not properly

handled or fixed. Nevertheless, one day it could happen and people would become aware of it.
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Biag,Yousef. “Sonoma County public schools greatly lack access to arts education, despite state

mandate.”Tribune Content Agency, LLC,

2020,https://www.proquest.com/docview/2333407885?accountid=39010&parentSessionId=Bhv

oy74kw8S%2B5PXjD4%2FZ2G6pWaIzQ%2Fk9MEmFvoTUkvw%3D

Chavez,Ericka. “California and the West; Plan to Boost Arts in Schools Unveiled; Education:

State schools chief calls lack of such classes the 'silent crisis.': [Home Edition].”Los Angeles

Times Communications, LLC, 1997,

https://www.proquest.com/docview/421186638?accountid=39010&parentSessionId=0RToWsNi

pwrCBRtdA4d5HtaKOJ6zQYTnDt2ZLpXHgng%3D