The Status of Arts Education in Ohio's Public ... - Ohio Arts Council

Access to dance and drama/theatre is limited nationwide, but access is slightly
more limited in Ohio’s high schools than nationally.
Comparing Ohio’s results to the national data shows that Ohio lags in providing access to dance
and drama/theatre in high school. Ohio’s results for grades K-8 reflect the national averages.
(See Figure 9.)
Figure 9: Access to Dance and Drama/Theatre Courses—
National Sample Compared to Ohio Survey
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
45%
39%
National
Ohio
20%
10%
3% 3% 4% 4%
12%
7%
0%
Dance
(Elementary)
Drama/Theatre
(Elementary)
Dance
(Secondary)
Drama/Theatre
(Secondary)
Note: In the national survey, grades K-8 are categorized as elementary schools. The
Ohio data shown above were obtained by combining the percentages for elementary
and middle schools.
Access to instruction in one or more arts disciplines is lower in high-poverty
districts nationally, but Ohio’s equity gap seems to be narrower.
The ODE data indicate that lack of access to arts instruction is most prevalent where there is
poverty—most notably 10 percent of schools in Ohio’s 15 major high-poverty urban districts and
39 percent of community schools, which typically serve low-income communities. As Table 6
(next page) shows, however, access to arts education among Ohio’s high-poverty schools and the
NCES sample are similar. The equity gap also appears to be narrower in Ohio—partly because
access to the arts is better among Ohio’s high-poverty districts than it is among their counterparts
in the national sample, and partly because Ohio’s highest income districts (Type 7) do not
compare favorably with the high-income segment.
Status of Arts Education in Ohio’s Public Schools 29