Promoting Creativity: The Importance of Art in Education

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Recommended: Advantages and disadvantages of our culture's reliance on standardized testing

America is the country of progress and innovation, in order to achieve this in America prioritizes strict memorization and standardized nationwide test scores over creativity. No Child Left Behind was signed into law in 2002 by President George W. Bush as a re-authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (Cite?). The law demands that public schools nationwide improve educational standards, specifically among disadvantaged students. To achieve this goal, federal initiated testing started in 2005 to determine student’s proficiency in math and reading. If state determined proficiency is failed to be reached three times in a row a school would be subject to outside corrective measures, including possible governance changes (“No Child Left Behind”-Education Week). Due to legislation such as this, and general state and country wide budget cuts, art and creativity in finding less and less of a place in schools around the country. After the laws 2002 signing, 71 percent of the nation's 15,000 schools had cut down on music, art and even history to devote even more class time to math and science(Dillons). In America arts education has been slipping for more than three decades, the result of tight budgets, an ever-growing list of state mandates that have crammed the classroom curriculum, and a public sense that the arts are lovely but not essential. Now with the addition of No Child Left Behind, students bombarded with class after class of math and English are suffering from a lack of creativity in their learning and the rigor of the core classes does not seem to be improving test scores (Cite).

Enid Zimmerman an editor for Art Educator magazine attended a state art education organization meeting and she “found my place at...

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.... Jan 2011. .

Riddett-Moore, Karinna. "Encouraging Empathy through Aesthetic Engagement: An Art Lesson in Living Compositions." International Journal of Education & the Arts 12 Oct. 2009. Web. Feb. 2011. .

Rubenstein, Grace. "Real World, San Diego: Hands-On Learning at High Tech High | Edutopia." Editorial. K-12 Education & Learning Innovations with Proven Strategies That Work | Edutopia. Edutopia, Dec. 2008. Web. 23 Feb. 2011. .

"Why Arts Education Is Crucial, and Who's Doing It Best | Edutopia." Edutopia. Feb 2009 Web. Feb. 2011. .

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