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Home > Resources > Messages for Business Leaders/Policymakers
Messages for Business Leaders/Policymakers
Click here to download a pdf of the messages.
Our early messaging research revealed a set of persuasive arguments for mobilizing support for integrated arts learning. Opinion research demonstrates how these messages are effective in building support for arts education. Teachers and school leaders were included in the research group, but the messages are clearly targeted most toward engaging parents and mobilizing them towards advocacy.
In our subsequent and ongoing work, we have looked more specifically at business leaders and policymakers (primarily county and state level elected officials) as target audiences. These groups are influenced by arguments on economic development and workforce preparation. Increasingly, there is research and information from the business sector that is calling for more creative skills from the emerging workforce.
In October 2006 a report based on an detailed survey of 431 human resource officials (conducted in April and May 2006 by The Conference Board, Corporate Voices for Working Families, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, and the Society for Human Resource Management) found the youth workforce unprepared. Its objective was to examine employers' views on the readiness of new entrants to the U.S. workforce—recently hired graduates from high schools, two-year colleges or technical schools, and four-year colleges. Looking toward the future, nearly three-fourths of the survey participants ranked "creativity/innovation" as among the top five applied skills projected to increase in importance for future graduates.
In the December 2006 controversial report Tough Choices or Tough Times by the National Center on Education and the Economy, the authors called for transforming education to foster “a deep vein of creativity that is constantly renewing itself.” The report predicts “a world in which a very high level of preparation in reading, writing, speaking, mathematics, science, literature, history, and the arts will be an indispensable foundation for everything that comes after for most members of the workforce.”
To broaden the existing message platform in support of arts education, we recommend arguments that emphasize skill development, as they are likely to be of greater interest to these groups than, for example, the intrinsic value of arts learning.
We suggest the following messages, built on research from our work, the “unified statement,” Arts Education Partnership and other leaders in the field.
School Focused Messages:
- Arts education is proven to develop well-rounded students with critical thinking-skills.
- By educating the whole child, arts education positions students to be competitive in the emerging “creative economy.”
- Learning in the arts contributes to better school attendance and student behavior.
- The arts provide the skills and knowledge students need to develop the creativity and determination necessary for success in today’s global information age.
Business/Industry Focused:
- A comprehensive arts education fosters the creativity and innovation needed to create a more competitive workforce.
- Today’s students who are learning through the arts will become tomorrow’s workforce of creative individuals and support the American economy.
- Whether students are preparing for future employment in traditional or creative industries, the skills fostered by arts education will help position students for future employment.
- Public education, arts education advocates, and the business sector should seize opportunities for partnerships that can build the type of successful communities that we all want to live in.
Click here to download a pdf of the messages.
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