A Quasi-Experimental Study on the Impact of Fine Arts Instruction on the Academic Achievement, Attendance, and Disciplinary Outcomes of HISD Students, 2017-2018. Research Educational Program Report

To measure the impact of fine arts instruction in HISD [Houston Independent School District] , the study compared the STAAR [State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness] performance, attendance, and disciplinary outcomes of fine arts students enrolled in Fine Arts Magnet schools (treatment group) with students enrolled in non-Fine Arts Magnet schools (comparison group). An underlying assumption of the study was that Fine Arts Magnet students received a more robust fine arts education; therefore, representing a reliable treatment group, while comparison-group students had similar background characteristics, which strengthened the validity of the study. The study found that treatment and comparison-group students, typically, outperformed their peers districtwide on the 2018 STAAR 3-8 English reading and mathematics subtests, relative to the percentage of students who scored at or above the Approaches Grade Level standard, regardless of the type of teacher certification (visual arts, theatre, dance, instrumental music, and music). Comparison-group students outperformed treatment-group students under similar conditions. On the 2018 Algebra I Houston Independent School District exam, higher percentages of treatment-group students scored at or above this standard relative to comparison-group students. Moreover, treatment-group students outperformed comparison group students on the 2018 English I EOC [End-of-Course] exam in four of five teacher certification areas. Paired t-test analyses showed statistically significant improvements in STAAR 3-8 reading and mathematics scale scores as both groups successively progressed to fourth, fifth, and seventh grades from 2017 to 2018. Sixth and eighth-grade students in both groups also showed statistically significant improvements in reading from 2017 to the 2018. Difference-in-differences analyses revealed benefits in treatment-group participation as evidenced by lower in-and out-of-school suspension rates over the comparison group, and an observable small, positive program effect on "no" in-school suspensions. This study observed evidence that fine arts instruction in HISD has contributed toward improving student achievement and behavioral outcomes. Future research could measure student engagement as well as the dosage effect of fine arts instruction for students enrolled in a coherent sequence of fine arts courses, with multiple years of instruction.