No Child Left Behind and Public School Arts Instruction

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) era (2002-2015) left education stakeholders wondering how consequential accountability policies impacted visual and performing arts education across public schools in the United States. To better understand this, changes in the national landscape of visual and performing arts programs during the NCLB era were examined, including classroom instructional time and the teacher workforce. Four years of longitudinal data collected by the National Center for Education Statistics, including the Schools and Staffing Survey and Early Childhood Longitudinal Studies, were used to employ descriptive statistics and econometrics (covariate-adjusted regressions, difference-in-differences design, and weighted estimates).

Findings published in Arts Education Policy Review and Early Childhood Research Quarterly. Findings presented at the American Education Research Association and the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management conferences.

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Gara, T. V., Brouillette, L., & Farkas, G. (2018). Did the frequency of early elementary classroom arts instruction decrease after no child left behind? If so, for whom? Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 45(4), 263-276. Click here to view the abstract.

Gara, T. V., Farkas, G., & Brouillette, L. (2020). Did consequential accountability policies decrease the share of visual and performing arts education in U.S. public secondary schools during the No Child Left Behind Era? Arts Education Policy Review. Click here to view the full article.