Mishook,+Jacob

** Arts Integration in an Era of Accountability. Jocob Mishook and Mindy L. Kornhaber. Arts Education Policy Review. Vol. 107. No. 4 March/April 2006 ** ABSTRACT Report on pilot study in Virginia to investigate the influence on high stakes Standards of Learning (SOL) exam on the arts, both in schools with a self-identified strong focus on the arts, and well as schools without such a focus. Comparisons of schools with co-equal arts integration or subservient arts integration were based on type of school (arts vs. non arts) and socioeconomic status (SES). The findings included: 7. Four schools out of nine, in the face of pressures to shift time and resources toward tested areas, maintained co-equal relationships between art and tested areas. This occurred most often at schools with an arts focus, where there was strong arts mission, as well as experienced staff and committed administrators. QUESTIONS/IMPLICATIONS
 * 1) The arts focused, wealthy schools in the sample were usually successful in maintaining coequal arts integration curricula, or by keeping the arts and academic areas separate altogether, with only slight modifications to integrate SOL and arts content.
 * 2) Non-arts schools, both wealthy and poor, embrace an arts integration model that places arts as subservient to tested subjects.
 * 3) Integration was central to the school’s mission among schools with coequal arts education.
 * 4) Schools that engaged in a long-term professional development partnership with a regional art center providing ongoing and intensive training supports lasting co-equal arts integration
 * 5) Schools that used a more subservient arts integration approach tended to have lower SOL test scores.
 * 6) Schools with subservient arts integration approach were more likely to be high schools, excepting an outstanding art-focused high school academy with high admissions standards and experienced arts teachers.  (subservient approach in high schools might be because of higher stakes for students at the high school level.
 * **Study framed questions used in interview to gather data that might be useful and contained case studies of attitudes (and misconceptions of teaching staff) about the value of arts integration.**
 * **If the arts remain independent of other tested areas of the curriculum, the arts could find themselves to be isolated, and “to be left out is to be disregarded is no asset when it comes for competing for time and other resources to support one’s program” (Eisner, 2000)**
 * **Under what conditions might integration flourish or never take a hold in a school?**
 * **Schools with a high poverty tend to use a subservient approach to the arts. How might high poverty in student population affect professional development and the attitude of teachers and leadership in a district?**