Bow Arts Advocacy is a community-based group of parents and others who want to enhance arts education in our schools. Since 2005 we have researched and discussed Bow's arts curriculum with teachers, administrators, and state and national organizations.

We appreciate the administration's support for the arts. The district is full of excellent visual and performing arts teachers who maximize the potential of their students within the teaching framework they are given. But there is still need for substantial improvement.

We would like to see Bow develop a stronger, broader path for students to more fully express the artist within themselves and demonstrate the mastery that is required by the state in the visual or performance art of their choice.

We are not asking the district to increase its overall budget. We can enhance arts education with the resources we have. We do not want the arts to overshadow other necessary subjects and activities. We are only seeking the proper place for the arts in balance with the rest of the curriculum. 

State standards require arts education instruction that is even and equal throughout the three Bow schools, a standard that is not presently met. 

In middle school and high school there should be increased opportunity for and continuity in arts education. There should be more emphasis on the process of learning, in the form of disciplined-based skill development, in contrast to the product of learning, in the form of performance or projects. 

Presently, the elementary school offers two music and two arts classes each week, providing a strong foundation in arts education. But in the middle school, art and music are offered for one 22-day period a year. Both are taken as special rather than core classes.

There are potentially long periods of up to 18 months between specials which causes discontinuity in learning, especially for the 70 percent of students not participating in band and chorus. 

There are good opportunities in the middle school for performance but not enough opportunity for students to develop skills through the learning process. We are not suggesting that we lessen the performances, but rather that we increase the opportunity to learn skills. 

In high school a required half credit of art is fulfilled through "arts integrations" sessions. These take place throughout the freshmen and junior years and amount to about 22 days each year. From the elementary school to middle school and high school, the time spent on the arts is regressive. 

Bow High is the only high school in New Hampshire that we are aware of which fulfills the arts requirement through "arts integrations." Such programs expose students to the arts and explore the arts' relationship to other subjects. But they are ancillary to the core of arts education. 

We believe the high school should approach arts education the other way around. Discipline-based study should be primary and arts integrations secondary.

One proposal : Require an additional half credit in arts education. Alternatively, Bow could give no credit for the arts integrations and require a full credit in discipline-based study in the students choice of art. 

We also believe arts education could be enhanced by having the arts teachers from all three schools come together to discuss what they would like in a sequential curriculum. 

Why is all this important to us and our school district? It comes down to both quality of life and jobs. Bow schools educate our children for life. Arts education is one essential aspect in their preparation for life beyond K-12. Millions of people enjoy the arts as an avocation or for recreation, and countless more simply appreciate them or are lifted by them. There were over 2.9 million arts-related jobs in the Unite States in 2005, including 10,500 in New Hampshire. 

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