Bloomberg Arts Initiative To Grade Schools' Performance

Answering critics who say the city schools offer too little arts education, Mayor Bloomberg is touting an initiative, dubbed ArtsCount, to grade schools on areas likes music, drama, and dance. School principals will now be judged on their schools' compliance with state requirements, which oblige students to spend, in some cases, 20% of their week on arts education. The change was part of the city's push to give principals more control of their schools in exchange for punishments if they do not meet benchmarks.

The city schools chancellor, Joel Klein, said arts spending will increase under the new initiative. This school year, principals who controlled their budgets spent $4 million more on arts than they did the year before, he said.

A survey circulated this year suggests that many schools do not meet requirements. The survey, which the Department of Education conducted but would not confirm, calling it incomplete, found that less than 50% of middle school students had access to arts programs in the 2005–06 school year. Arts supporters had balked after the mayor axed a requirement that schools spend $60 a student on arts programs.

Richard Kessler, who directs a nonprofit now campaigning for more arts in the city schools, the Center on Arts Education, applauded the mayor's promise to judge principals on their compliance with state requirements. "We're going to help them," he said, adding: "And hold their feet to the fire."