Interactive Map Shows Which NYC Schools Don't Have Arts Teachers

A report released today by NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer shows that 20% of city schools have neither a full- nor a part-time certified arts teacher, 16% of schools have no arts or cultural partnerships, and 10% of schools have no dedicated arts room. "Despite widely-acknowledged benefits," the report argues, "as well as clearly established mandates in New York State Education Law, the provision of arts education in New York City's public schools has become both inequitable and underfunded."

Not so surprisingly, schools in New York's poorest neighborhoods offer the least amount of art education. The South Bronx and Central Brooklyn, for instance, are two of New York's lowest-income neighborhoods. But although they are home to 31% of all City schools, nearly half of all schools without any arts programming are found in those neighborhoods.

The benefits of arts education are many: in addition to higher GPAs and test scores cited in the Comptroller's report, studies from the National Institutes of Health and Americans For The Arts have shown that arts education helps with motor skills, language development, decision-making, visual learning, creativity and inventiveness, and cultural awareness.

NYC's mandated education standards state that "all students" should receive arts instruction through at least the eighth grade; and that in high school, "all public school districts shall offer students the opportunity to complete a three- or five-unit sequence in the arts." The report concludes that schools without any licensed arts teachers cannot possibly offer these minimum standards.

Despite Department of Education guidelines asserting that "students should have multiple opportunities every year" to experience arts and culture in the city outside their school building, 25% of high schools, 24% of middle schools, and 9% of elementary schools lack any partnerships with cultural institutions; once again, those schools are clustered in low-income neighborhoods. More than a third of all City schools without dedicated arts rooms are located in the South Bronx and Central Brooklyn.

When asked about these alleged violations of state guidelines, schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña issued a statement affirming the importance of arts education and promising that the Department of Education "will work to provide schools with the support they need to offer dedicated art classes that our students deserve."

The causes of the problem have mostly to do with space and funding. 50% of schools that responded to the most recent Department of Education survey on principal satisfaction cited fiscal resources as a "significant challenge" to providing arts education. In a bureaucratic system that punishes teachers and principals for dipping or stagnant test scores, administrators will prioritize the subjects that appear directly on standardized tests. Arts do not.

Additionally, 25% of principals in the same survey reported that lack of available space presented a major challenge, bringing new urgency to debates about charter school colocations. When charter schools move in, public schools sometimes lose their arts spaces.

"Funding for arts education in New York City has been on a steady decline over the last seven years—it's time for us to draw up a new plan so that we can give all our children, in every corner of the City, a quality, comprehensive arts education," said Comptroller Stringer. The report suggests several ways to improve, including increasing funding for arts education, adding arts education to School Progress Reports, making sure every school has at least one certified arts teacher, and ensuring that there is no loss of art rooms when district and charter schools are colocated.