The impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic has made the need for arts education data an urgent priority for many. Converging events have created the opportunity to gather, analyze and report on arts education data to reveal the status and condition of arts education and the impact of COVID-19.
These include:
- The development of State Longitudinal Data Systems (SLDS) over the past decade.
- The passage of the America Competes Act in 2007 and reauthorization in 2011.
- The established expectation that all “core courses” (as defined by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act) are included in the data collection.
- The availability of federal funding to support the development of individual SLDS through both the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and the Race to the Top grant competition for states in 2010/2011.
- The development of arts education course codes for elementary grades (2011) and the revision of course codes for secondary grades (2013) by the National Center for Education Statistics.
This combination of events has created the proper environment to enable the Project Team to gather, analyze and report arts education data for individual states.
