Review of Evidence: Arts Education Through the Lens of ESSA

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), the 2015 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, includes a diverse array of programs and funding streams that states, local educational agencies, and schools might leverage to support school improvement and student success. These programs and funding streams include approaches to teaching the arts and learning about the arts. Furthermore, ESSA contains provisions requiring or encouraging that educational agencies seeking to use federal funds available through the law for many of these approaches adopt evidence-based interventions. The inclusion of arts in ESSA shows that policymakers, not only arts advocacy groups and educators, view arts as an essential component in a well-rounded education.

This report presents the results of a review of evidence about arts education interventions based n the evidence requirements in ESSA. According to ESSA, for an intervention to be evidence ased, research or theoretical support for the intervention must fall within one of four evidence
tiers. Evidence in Tiers I-III must “demonstrate a statistically significant effect on improving tudent outcomes or other relevant outcomes,” and the three tiers represent varying levels of rigor i.e., “strong/moderate/promising evidence”). Tier IV evidence must “demonstrate a rationale” that
an intervention is “likely to improve student outcomes or other relevant outcomes,” and it must be oupled with “ongoing efforts to examine the effects” of the intervention (ESSA, Title VIII, Section 101(21)(A)). School improvement activities funded through ESSA (Title I, section 1003) must
include at least one intervention in one of the first three tiers.

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