Arts Education Edges to the Head of the Class : Schools: A report released at a Getty-sponsored conference aims to put art on the national agenda--and keep it there.

“The Power of the Arts to Transform Education: An Agenda for Action,” a report released on Friday at a Getty-sponsored conference in San Francisco, aims to put arts education on the national agenda and keep it there. Arguing for the arts’ central role in education, the report recommends establishing a National Center for the Arts in Education, transforming teacher training and setting curriculum standards and methods of assessing achievement through local, state and national partnerships.

“We are convinced that excellence in education is possible only with the full inclusion of the arts. . . . A society that deprives its students of these studies accepts mediocrity and endangers a democracy that depends on an informed citizenry to sustain it,” says the report, which contains recommendations from the Arts Education Partnership Working Group.

The 39-member group of teachers and administrators is headed by James D. Wolfensohn, chairman of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and Harold M. Williams, president of the J. Paul Getty Trust. The report was distributed on Friday to 1,450 registrants at “Achieving National Education Reform: Arts Education as Catalyst,” a conference organized by the Getty Center for Education in the Arts held at the San Francisco Hilton and Towers.

Arts education as defined by the report encompasses dance, music, visual arts, theater, fine arts design, architecture, film, video and written forms of creative expression, Williams said in an interview shortly before he departed for the conference. The curriculum advocated by the group goes beyond creating and performing in the arts. Students must understand the role of the arts in culture and history, the qualities of various art forms and how to make sound judgments about the arts, he said.

The arts are valuable for their own sake--for the insights they provide and the complex uses of intelligence they require--but they also provide avenues of learning other subjects, he said.

To implement reform, the report advocates the establishment of a National Center for the Arts in Education. “It’s not the kind of organization that would be expected to pass judgment on programs, but to serve as a clearing house for information and ideas, and as a place that helps to keep arts education on the national agenda,” Williams said.

The Arts Partnership Working Group, which is jointly funded by the Kennedy Center and the Getty, is preparing a detailed plan of what the center would do, how it would be staffed and how much it would cost. The plan is expected to be ready by mid-year, when it will be presented to the Clinton Administration and Congress.

“We’re hopeful that a large part of the funding might come from the government. But we view it as probably a joint effort, combining government and private funding,” Williams said.

Another recommendation addresses teacher education. The report advocates pilot teacher-preparation programs, support for model programs that demonstrate how to integrate arts eduction with teacher preparation, and the involvement of artists and other arts professionals in art education.

As for standards and assessment, the report recommends that appropriate federal and state agencies coordinate and implement ongoing efforts and seek inclusion of the arts in the National Educational Goals. “Basically what we are trying to do here is encourage the development of standards so that art is perceived as a discipline,” Williams said.

“Everybody has to get into the act--government, school boards, arts educators and cultural organizations--for this to work,” he said. The report recommends that national programs be established to encourage communities to include the arts in their goals and to implement cooperative programs.

Williams said the report is important for two reasons. “It responds to an invitation from the U.S. Department of Education--something that’s never happened before. And it’s the first time representatives of the various disciplines have been able to sit around the table together and recognize their common objective. It’s the first time they have recognized both the opportunity and the fact that the arts are being left out.”

Williams is optimistic about implementing the report’s recommendations. Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley has supported the arts in his home state of South Carolina and “seems to have indicated his appreciation for the importance of the arts in the curriculum,” he said.

But Williams also conveys a sense of urgency. “This effort concerns more than the creative side of arts education,” he said. “Where are the audiences of tomorrow going to come from (now that arts programs have fallen victim to budget cuts)? Where are the volunteers going to come from?

“The schools send a message . . . If no arts education is required of high school graduates, what kind of message does that send? If colleges and universities don’t require their students to have arts education, what does that say? If teachers aren’t prepared in the arts, what does that say? We have to ask where we are as a society. How important is this to a civilized society?”