Photo captions for the arts education article on Pages 1E and 4E of yesterday's Today section were inadvertently reversed. The Page 1E photo features Baltimore Del. James W. Campbell and student Corey Schreier at Baltimore City College. The Page 4E photo is of student Henry Odom and NEA Chairwoman Jane Alexander.
The Sun regrets the errors.
A suit and tie aren't ideal garb when one is doing a grand plie, but Del. James W. Campbell was game.
FOR THE RECORD - CORRECTION
Down. Up. Down. Up.
He, and the Baltimore City College high school students around him, were learning movements to use during battle in a Shakespearean play.
Nearby in the auditorium, City Councilman Robert Curran stood, foot tapping, as the saxophones in the jazz ensemble wailed. And in the library, Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke, School Superintendent Walter Amprey and Jane Alexander, head of the National Endowment for the Arts, swayed in time to a choir belting out "America."
They and about 60 other politicians, educators and cultural leaders yesterday threw pots, performed improvisational dramatic sketches and drew the line at dancing at City College high.
They came to publicize the notion that education is more than reading, writing and arithmetic. That it extends beyond the Internet and calculus. That valuable lessons can be learned while painting with watercolors, singing a cappella or playing a trombone.
"For a long time, people have considered the arts a frill," said Alexander. "When budgets began getting cut, people began to focus on math and sciences and reading and writing. But the three R's can be taught in other ways, and when children have a chance to express themselves in the arts they are brighter, and they stand up taller."
Yesterday's program was among several similar events sponsored statewide this month by Arts Education in Maryland Schools, a consortium of arts and education organizations that lobbies for higher quality and more consistency in arts education throughout public schools.
The consortium advocates beefing up arts programs in two ways: by giving children a chance to express themselves through drama, dance or other fine arts classes, and by "infusing" the arts across the curriculum.
At City College, freshmen take a class called "Man and His Culture," in which they study the history of different societies by studying the music, art and drama that developed in each, said Celia Rocca, a drama and English literature teacher. In "Women in Society," the instructor uses works of art to draw students into discussions. And literature students examine other art forms that complement what they are reading.
In drawing class yesterday, Henry Odom carefully sketched a to-scale image of a car -- using a grid covered in scribbled mathematical notations. "Lack of time has often been the kibosh on teaching the arts, but in many respects it is a matter of combining the lessons," said Alexander, who stopped to watch the 11th-grader's progress.
"In [this] painting class, the students are learning to use a grid. And they have to use math," she pointed out. "Even in ceramics, if you want, math can be taught."
In Maryland, all students must earn one credit in the fine arts -- whether visual arts, drama or music -- before graduating, said Eileen Oickle, chief of middle and high school learning for the Maryland Department of Education. The state also provides curricular frameworks that outline goals that should be met in the arts in other grades.
Nonetheless, there is great disparity statewide in arts education programs.
"The curriculum demands that each school have these classes, but it is subject to interpretation," said Charlotte Hayes, the city's curriculum specialist for the performing arts. "It varies from school to school. Some schools use adjunct faculty, some schools have a teacher who is interested in teaching arts. Some have teachers trained in arts. But if you asked the principals, they'd all say, 'Yes, we have it.' "
Last year, the State Board of Education adopted the goal that by the year 2000, all Maryland students have an opportunity to participate in fine arts programs that allow them to meet pre-set standards. A state-appointed advisory panel also is working to define those standards -- and a way of evaluating students' progress.
A growing body of research shows that students who receive arts education score higher on academic tests across the board. And the more arts lessons they get, the better they do.
For example, students who study the arts for four years or longer score an average of 53 points higher on their verbal SATs and 37 points higher on their math SATs, according to the College Board Profile of SAT and Achievement Test Takers for 1990-1993.
And when two Prince George's County elementary schools began using the arts as a tool for teaching lessons in all subjects, students at both showed dramatic improvements in state-required test scores within a year.
