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.1 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.3 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 data from the current report were published in a First Look report that was intended to introduce the 2009–10 survey data and highlight a few summary statistics on the current status of arts education (Parsad and Spiegelman 2011).4 The purpose of this second report is to provide a broader description of the current status of arts education and changes from a decade ago. This report is not intended to be an exhaustive description of data collected from the set of seven surveys. Rather, it is designed to describe key indicators of arts education in 2009–10 and comparisons with 1999–2000, where applicable. Detailed data from all of the surveys are provided in supplemental tables at http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2012014. At the elementary school level, indicators are based on data collected from school principals, music specialists, visual arts specialists, and classroom teachers. Indicators at the secondary level are based on data collected from school principals, music specialists, and visual arts specialists. [Introduction, p. 1]

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.1 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.