Policy Paradox: Accountability in Arts Ed
Visual illustration of a paradox with arrows pointing both left and right. By Yumu on Unsplash.
Money and policy are usually cast as the engines of accountability. In arts education, though, the story is messier. The real question is what actually drives accountability—and what states can do when the formal levers are weak, uneven, or easy to ignore.
To get at that question, I paired Arts Education Partnership’s (AEP) ArtScan policy data with access and participation data from the Arts Education Data Project. What emerges is a familiar but uncomfortable truth: supportive policy, by itself, does not reliably translate into access or participation. Accountability depends just as much on how policy is interpreted, implemented, and enforced.
Policy Paradox
That is the policy paradox: what states require on paper is not always what students experience in practice. California has long been a vivid example. A 2022 SRI Education study found that 79% of school leaders reported offering at least one of the four required arts disciplines, yet only 11% of schools offered a sequential, standards-based course of study in all four disciplines, as state policy requires—essentially unchanged since 2005–06.
California is not an exception, though it may be starting to narrow the gap through major funding with the Arts and Music in Schools Funding Guarantee and Accountability Act (AMS) and new audits tied to how those funds are used. Across other states, the same pattern shows up: strong arts instruction policies on the books, participation rates still hovering in the 50–60% range, and as many as 13% of students left without access.
Focus on Instructional Requirements
According to ArtScan all fifty states have elementary and secondary arts ed state standards—knowledge, concepts, and skills students are expected to learn. Corollary to the provision of state standards are instructional requirements, indicating whether the standards must be taught. According to ArtScan, forty states have some type of instructional requirement in elementary/middle and 39 in high school. Twelve states have no instructional requirements in the arts.
Instructional requirements come in all shapes and sizes, from robust to meh. One key to interpretation is in the language. The phrase “must be taught” is an indicator of a strong instructional requirement policy, as is having a specified number of minutes the arts must be taught or a specified number of courses to be taught. The more specific the language, the less room for interpretation.
The phrases “shall be taught”, “shall provide”, or “shall have experiences” are not as strong. They allow for wiggle room on the implementation side.
Policy Overlay with Participation and Access
If instructional requirements are among the clearest policy levers available, we should expect them to produce stronger access and participation. But the data resist that tidy conclusion.
A snapshot of nearly 20 states shows participation rates from 52% to 83%, a wide spread among states that mostly have good to excellent policies.
The contrast becomes even harder to ignore among the 12 states with no instructional requirements: two still report high participation rates of 78.8% and 64.7%. That is a strong signal that accountability is shaped by more than policy, testing, or funding alone.
Accountability Levers That Drive Educational Goals
In addition to money and policy, what other levers have the potential to drive accountability? And can we transform the notion of accountability from a compliance score to a demonstration of value?
Assessment: There is the adage that “what is tested is taught.” Since the days of high stakes testing in the No Child Left Behind era, mandated testing in reading and math is the norm. Not for the arts. Some states did include the arts in their state accountability report cards, with mixed results. That said, there is a case to be made for including the arts in “Profile of a Graduate” frameworks as more states and localities adopt them.
Leverage. Funders have a bully pulpit; they can support arts advocates by strengthening their message. They can also create added incentives and value by leveraging/linking grants with school districts. A national funder for music education leveraged its grant-making to strengthen school district commitments by requiring the presence of full-time credentialed music teachers.
Budget. Arts education doesn’t exist as a single line item in school budgets. It pays to understand the budget-making process, engage in budget conversations with your school and district, and offer budget solutions to thorny problems. Arts advocates in a school district in North Carolina proposed consolidating the budget for musical instruments (found in supplies/equipment or instructional materials), thereby promoting equity and saving money through the bidding process.
Influence. Champions and coalitions can raise arts education on the agenda by shaping public and institutional priorities.
Priorities. District planning, community engagement, and cross-sector partnerships can help show the value of arts education beyond test scores. A collective voice is a powerful tool.
Student Demand. Graduation requirements that require at minimum a year of art have been softening. A growing trend is a diploma seal for the arts for students who complete a requisite number of arts courses. Currently eight states now offer an arts endorsement diploma. These growing programs may create additional student demand, which could in turn create the need for additional courses in high schools with a corresponding bump in the middle to high school pipeline.
Accountability is a constant in education, but the arts have never fully claimed their place in that conversation. If arts education is going to do so, it will need to show not only that it is required, but that it advances the larger purposes of schooling in ways that matter and are difficult to dismiss.
Resources:
Arts Education Partnership’s ArtScan
Benge Steele, C., Woodworth, K. R., Baeta, D., & Terrell, E. (2025). California arts education landscape 2025. SRI.
Herpin, S. A., Wynveen, K., & Berry, W. (2025). California’s Proposition 28 Arts and Music Funding Guarantee and Accountability Act: Initial impact on arts organizations. WestEd.
Woodworth, K., Benge, C., Fields, X., Zamora, M. C., Levin-Güracar, E., & Boyce, J. (2022). Creativity challenge: The state of arts education in California. SRI Education.