arts & business council

MetLife Foundation National Arts Forums Series

Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

“No Child Left Behind” vs. Arts in Education: Implications for Workforce Development
01/31/2007

Moderator: Dr. Harry D. Clark, Retired Principal, Pittsburgh High School for the Creative and Performing Arts

Panelists:

• Phyllis G. Hartman, Founder, PGHR Consulting
• Vanessa Lund, Project Director, Human Capital Policy Initiative, University of Pittsburgh
• Sarah Tambucci, Ph.D., Executive Director, Arts Education Collaborative

The forum began with presentations by the three panelists, and was followed by an extensive question and answer session. Ms. Hartman provided the national context for workforce development, highlighting trends in human resources across the United States. Ms. Lund then addressed the changing face of the local economy, citing specific trends in recruitment, hiring, and retention in the ongoing transition from an industrial to an innovative economy. Dr. Tambucci concluded with a summary of the effects that the “No Child Left Behind” Act has had on arts education, both locally and nationally, suggesting ways to use the legislation for the good of the Pittsburgh region.

Arts education was clearly articulated as a priority for the Greater Pittsburgh community last fall, when arts education advocates made their voices heard at the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council’s Cultural Policy forum. As thriving sectors of the local economy, both the arts and educational communities have been instrumental in the revitalization and development of the region. Pittsburgh boasts world-class arts organizations such as the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and the Andy Warhol Museum, as well as world-class educational institutions, like University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University. It has an active network of artist residencies in schools, successful arts magnet schools like CAPA and Rogers Middle School, and organizations like Gateway to the Arts and the Arts Education Collaborative devoted to furthering the arts in education. This region is poised to become an arts education model for the entire country, as it continues to cultivate and nurture creative individuals who respond to the needs of the evolving economy.

The local effort is not without roadblocks. Across the United States, increased global competition, new technology, and an aging workforce are driving the need to develop workers who can remain competitive in the economy of the future. According to a 2005 survey of employers , these changes will require an increased focus on applied skills, with 73.6 percent of respondents projecting “creativity/ innovation” as one of their top needs in the next 5 years. In the Pittsburgh region, which has struggled to diversify a formerly steel-based economy, the need to create innovative workers takes on even more urgency. Local employers, however, often have difficulty finding enough workers with the skills they need, and the region is still struggling to attract—and retain—creative people. The region often fails to utilize its current workforce, with unusually high unemployment among its college graduates, women, and African Americans, even in a relatively strong national economy. In this context, education needs to play a stronger role: a disturbingly large percentage of the region’s elementary school students do not perform at grade level; 20 percent of high school students—and fully 42 percent of African American students—will not graduate from high school; and only half of the students currently enrolled at local colleges and universities will complete a degree after 6 years. 

Calling on the value of arts education to help surmount these obstacles requires a dedication to arts education research, to community engagement, and to proper funding for school arts programs, all of which require more widespread recognition of the value of arts to the quality of life. Barry Nathan, Vice President for Workforce Initiatives at Catalyst Connection, commented that “Knowing what the researchers say about arts education is very important for positioning. You have to speak about the scientific underpinning.” Further, keeping arts education strong requires an engaged, knowledgeable community that is willing to sit on school boards, write legislators, and work with existing organizations to affect change. Finally, strong arts education requires adequate funding. Linda Lewis, principal at Rogers Middle School for the Creative and Performing Arts, lamented her past experience leading a lower-achieving middle school. “You have to make some tough choices. At one point, to my great personal disappointment, I was forced to cut a music teacher. I saw the need and how music could educate these children, but the restrictions above me created limitations.”  In schools that are understaffed and underfunded, the battle to maintain the arts is increasingly difficult. 

Fortunately, Pittsburgh has a wealth of organizations and individuals dedicated to arts education.  Among the exemplars cited was Gateway to the Arts, the Arts Education Collaborative, Studio for Creative Inquiry, South Fayette School District, Arts Alive, Shakespeare-in-the-Schools, and Project 720 Schools. International models included Australia’s “Rich Tasks of Learning” and early childhood studies in Italy.

Throughout the discussion, attendees offered a number of ways to encourage and support a more arts-rich educational system:

• Teach the arts within their cultural context, not just with “arts facts.”
• Look at effective models for integrating disciplines, such as the Center for Arts Management and Technology, based at CMU.
• Focus on art forms that are more relevant to underserved or struggling demographics, which would provide diversified exposure for many students and more effectively reach the struggling ones.
• Use students’ success in their artistic endeavors to motivate them in their other school subjects.
• Diminish the dichotomy created by categorizing classes as either artistic or academic.
• Ask not IF there is a relationship between the arts and education, but HOW to better it.
• Stop asking permission to be invited to the table, and instead, actively engage legislative and policy-making institutions to affect pro-arts changes.
• Require guidance counselors to retrain themselves about what jobs are out there since they last went to school.
• Don’t rely only on superintendents who are managers; rather, get on school boards, where policy is made.
• Get the word out about philosophies from authors like Dan Pink, which articulate clearly the benefits of creative education across multiple sectors.
• Educate the public about why the arts are important, both for intrinsic and instrumental value.

To conclude, burgeoning industries such as healthcare, biology, robotics, and technology are changing the way we work in Pittsburgh. This clearly calls for a change in the way we prepare people to work, moving away from industrial (and even agricultural!) education models that still form the backbone of our educational system. With a proper focus on arts education, we can develop creative models that encourage students and workers to continue to grow and adapt to the challenges we now face—and to those we have not yet envisioned.