Students need art, music

Toledo Blade: Ohio schools shed more than 10 percent of their art and music teachers over a 10-year period, a new report from Policy Matters Ohio says. The arts are important parts of life, and they should be part of students’ education.

In its report, Policy Matters says Ohio lost nearly 1,000 art teachers between the 2005-06 and 2014-15 school years. That’s a 14.4 percent drop, adjusting for the decline in student enrollment. In music, it was 673 or 12 percent. Put differently, that left 400 students for every music teacher.

How do you get 400 singers to breathe properly? How do you hear whether 400 notes are flat? To grade 400 students’ math homework would be an impossible workload.

Schools should make sure every student has at least some exposure to art and music – and that those who need more substantial education in the arts get it. That means making sure they employ adequate numbers of art and music teachers.