Arts Education in Public Elementary and Secondary Schools: 1999-2000. Statistical Analysis Report.

This report provides a national profile of the status of arts education in the nation's public schools during the 1999-2000 school year. The National Endowment for the Arts, the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI), and the Office of Reform Assistance and Dissemination (ORAD) of OERI requested that the surveys reported in this document be conducted under the Fast Response Survey System (FRSS) of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). The report presents information on the characteristics of public elementary and secondary school arts education programs, including data on the availability of instruction in the arts, staffing, funding, supplemental programs and activities, and administrative support of arts education. It is based on data collected from elementary principals (n=640) and secondary principals (n=686) and from elementary arts specialists (music specialists (n=453) and visual arts specialists (n=331)) and classroom teachers (n=497). The report states that in the 1999-2000 academic year, music instruction and visual arts instruction were available in most of the nation's public elementary schools (94% and 87% respectively); dance and drama/theater were available in less than one-third of elementary schools (20% and 19% respectively). It also finds that overall, 72% of elementary schools offering music and 55% of elementary schools offering visual arts employed full-time specialists to teach these subjects, while full-time specialists in dance were employed by 24% of elementary schools offering it and full-time drama/theater specialists were employed by 16% of elementary schools offering it. The report states that the percentage of elementary schools with dedicated rooms for the arts varied greatly. It finds that music and visual arts instruction were offered in most of the nation's public secondary schools (90% and 93% respectively), while dance and drama/theater were offered less frequently (14% and 48% respectively). Appended are: Survey Methodology; Tables of Standard Errors; and Survey Questionnaires. (Contains 55 text tables, 26 text figures, and 14 references.) (BT)