The 2008 Nation's Arts Report Card details how much eighth-grade students know and are able to do in music and the visual arts.
Today, for the first time in more than a decade, the U.S. Department of Education announced the results of the 2008 Nation's Arts Report Card, detailing how much eighth-grade students know and are able to do in music and the visual arts. The results, officially known as the 2008 National Assessment of Educational Progress in the Arts (NAEP) reveal barriers to student achievement in the arts, with significant racial/ethnic, gender, and socioeconomic gaps. The results elicited the most direct and supportive statement from the federal government regarding arts education in recent years. In response to the results, the Secretary of Education and senior officials at the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Assessment Governing Board all called for substantially increasing access to arts learning and significantly improving the quality of national data collection on the status of arts education in the nation's schools.