New Jersey Arts Education Hits Ups and Downs

A new report finds conflicting signs in New Jersey arts education: access seems to be increasing, while actual student participation is on the wane. The New Jersey Arts Education Census Project – commissioned by the State Council on the Arts, the N.J. Department of Education, and the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation – discovered that 97 percent of schools in the state provided music or visual arts in their instruction, three percent higher than a similar study found in 2006. However, only 80 percent of the schools’ students were actually participating in those arts classes, which is down from 86 percent in 2006. High school participation in particular is down from 50 percent to 41 percent.

For more info and to read the complete census, visit www.artsednj.org.