Why are visual or performing arts in high school not considered "academic" by many around here?

Parents Forum
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Why are visual or performing arts in high school not considered “academic” by many around here?

While it is true that colleges typically expect 0-1 years of visual or performing arts in high school, which is typically less than for other academic subjects like English, math, social studies, science, and foreign language, that does not mean that they are not “academic”. General and liberal arts colleges commonly offer visual and performing arts courses and majors, so they consider the subject “academic” in that sense.

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I’d venture to say because many don’t require it and many don’t have the level of ‘academic’ study as others. Some may but not all do. Colleges don’t always and most often don’t include these as academic.

But I imagine it’s school dependent UC requires it but does that mean they see it as academic ?

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I wonder if it’s because schools that focus on the arts - visual or performing – require a portfolio to evaluate students, and students who are planning to study non-arts are evaluated more heavily on the traditional non-arts subjects..

My kid went to a high school that required every student to do 3 years of arts because they felt it was important to how one learned and thought. This was, as we looked at high schools, far from the norm although interestingly, many grads subsequently reported that they felt like they took something quite valuable from those classes, even if they took them begrudgingly at the time.

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When our kids were at their high school, they had one of the most highly regarded wind ensembles in the state, as well as two fabulous instrumental music teachers. The school also had a terrific drama department. They did one drama/comedy a year, and coordinated with the instrumental music department to do an annual musical.

Sadly, funding for these programs has been reduced. The musical is now done every other year. There is now one instrumental music teacher so course offerings are less, and lessons during the school day aren’t happening anymore.

The Music Parents Association raises a TON of money to support the instrumental and vocal music programs. A very devoted group of parents.

At our school, being in the band was something very much in high regard by the other students. There was a middle school band, middle school jazz ensemble, high school band, high school honors wind ensemble, high school jazz band. AP Music Theory was offered every year with sufficient enrollment. Students regularly were top seats in all state, regional, and other auditioned ensembles.

Sadly, when cuts in budgets need to be made, the arts are a target…every year. I think this is awful.

So much research out there on the relation between music and academic success.

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My older daughter said that AP Music Theory was one of the most difficult classes that she had in high school. Math meets musical performance meets physics. For some of us this might be a match made in heaven, but it isn’t easy.

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I don’t believe this is true “around here” if by that you mean the regulars on CC.

I’ve found that the music parents, the theater parents, the fine arts parents, etc. are a very large and vocal group here.

The outside world- well, depends where you are. If you live in a town which keeps voting down bond issues to replace the school’s theater/auditorium which was built in 1950 because “The Arts are a waste of money”– well, then you know who your neighbors are. If you live in a town where the Superintendent keeps shifting money away from Arts Instruction to hire assistant soccer coaches for the middle schools to augment the head coaches– well, that’s a choice. Etc.

But on CC I think there’s a substantial community which loudly supports the arts in K-12 AND in college/university.

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At least two recent threads mentioned choosing of arts versus other courses in high school, with some comments assuming that the arts courses were “non-academic”.

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Comments by new posters or regulars? We’ve got a few old-timers who are “STEM or BUST” types who believe that “rigor” means taking Diff Eq senior year …. but I don’t think they are the norm!

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Example posts:

Regular History or AP CS Principles? - #7 by Ohno2 (#7 and #8)

Journey of a low gpa/high score/not typical excellent CC kid (warning: long post) (#1, “2 VPA electives senior year (along with 4 core academic subjects + compulsory gym class) whereas I felt they should have “caught up” on a missed academic elective”)

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I think people make decisions based on what the believe will be best for their college chances.

If someone has an ultra rigorous profile, people seem to recommend a non academic class such as an art or nutrition or whatever.

If people need more of the required by college stuff, they’ll recommend eschewing an art for another science or year of language - as examples.

I don’t think you can tie this website down like that to a definitive statement. But often it depends on what the college wants or people’s perception of what the college wants.

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To put my quoted post in context - VPA is considered an academic elective by the school (which follows CA a-g requirements), but what I was getting at was that the student concerned only has 2 levels of LOTE and 3 history/social science on their transcript. It is also a “lesser” subject by CSF qualification standards - you can only get a max 3 out of the required 10 points for VPA. But I could have phrased that better by distinguishing vs a core academic class rather than implying VPA is not “academic”.

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In my post yesterday, I called music classes at my DD’s school “non academic.” This is not a value judgement. In our musical family, music is valued more highly than most of the typical “academic” subjects, so much so that my DD wants to double up and take both choir and band senior year. I can’t speak for others, but I described her possible music classes as “non academic” because they are considered electives at her school. Her school calls math, English, social studies, foreign language, and science classes the core “academic” classes and everything else “non-academic” electives. I agree with you that the connotations inherent in these terms aren’t great, and it is a good question why schools use these terms. But parents here on CC that use the terms may just be following the schools’ nomenclature, not devaluing the arts themselves.

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Well my daughter went to a niche performing arts high school that would disagree (yes I know not the norm) The Chicago Academy for the Arts The Chicago Academy for the Arts

Also I think it depends on the students major or interests they want. I don’t think the arts are devalued as much as it could be taking more rigor in the straight college sense would give that student a better chance of achieving their goals.

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Back in the olden days (when I went to hs) all classes were treated the same. An A in gym or band or typing got the same weight as an A in physics or even Honors Algebra (my school gave no weight to honors or advanced classes and didn’t offer AP)

For my kids (hs class of 2014) all the general classes received the same weight in the gpa; there were extra points for AP or honors or DE, but there weren’t many AP art classes (art history and a design class are all I can think of).

I think the saddest thing was that some kids didn’t continue with band or art or theater because they ‘needed’ that boost of an AP or honors class to get a higher class rank. For my own two kids, the math and science kid had a much higher rank than the English and theater and AP art history one.

Schools/districts can design their own systems for weighting, but I wish every class was equally weighted, even PE. For some students, their strength is in PE while others excel in math. Both are important.

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One of mine has a PhD in music. Grad school meant writing at least 150 pages. Now a professor teaching music classes to undergrads. Certainly music has been an academic subject for them- and rigorous.

In high school, band and art classes were electives and graded. And sub par. Serious music and art kids tended to do more outside of school.

In our experience, very selective schools tend to honor the involvement in music or art (with supplement, including portfolio, resume, related letters of recommendation) and may understand possible lowering of rigor to accommodate that commitment. But, again, that usually means music or art outside of school to a significant level.

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In the Thumper family, we had two things we required our kids to do…in addition to meeting the HS graduation requirements.

  1. Participation in an arts course every year. Art, music, drama..ours chose music. And as mentioned above, the music parents were a strong group (maybe this belongs in the bragging thread…but I was chair of our school music parents association for 8 years, and had a very large and strong group of parents who I was proud to have on my team).
  2. Kids had to do one sport per year. Not one per season…one per year. DS chose tennis for two years, and ski club for two years. DD chose swim team for all four years. We didn’t care what sport they chose, but one season of a sport per year was our expectation. And we supported our swim team and the sports parents group at the school as well.

And I will say…our school counselors actually encouraged participation in some art courses in high school for all kids. We had a huge variety for a small school….because the arts are important in this community.

ETA…DD wanted to take AP Modern European History her senior year. Because it was a small high school, this class was offered only one period. To try to make it accessible for all the band kids (many of whom were honors students), the course unfortunately alternated being the same period as band every other year. DD had to make a choice…the AP class or honors wind ensemble. She chose honors wind ensemble, and we agreed with that choice. She was able to take APUSH and said it was the worst course she ever took.

I should add here (sort of off topic but not really)…both of our kids took culinary arts their senior years of high school. Of all of the courses they have taken, the notebooks from that class are the only ones they still have.

Our kids were not slacker kids because senior year they took instrumental music and culinary arts instead of some more “academic” courses. Both are doing quite well. I’d be happy to share via message.

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My two cents:

First, there are “core” versus “non-core” subjects, but some non-core subjects are academic, they just aren’t in the designated core areas, and instead are usually thought of as a type of “elective”. The basic idea of a core area is it just something which most people think every HS graduate should do up to a certain level (or perhaps covering certain topics, like US History in the US) as part of their “general education”. Colleges in the US often consider your general education to be continuing, so they may have certain things they are looking for in terms of preparation for their undergrad program when it comes to the core areas. Other academic subjects are considered non-necessary and hence “elective”, but of course many of those will be relevant to possible specific college minors and majors and such.

Second, when it comes to arts in general, there is a rough division between the academic study of arts (which can include theory, history, Art and X sort of topics, and so on), and the practical study of arts, where you are learning to actually do that sort of art. Of course the same one course could have some of both, but I think the typical assumption is many (not all) HS art classes are more practice-focused than academic-focused.

The same rough division persists in higher education, again with some courses, and minors and majors and so on, that overlap. But you can, say, get a degree in Art History, or end up doing a PhD in the Philosophy of Art, or so on, without actually studying to become an artist or performer. And there of course are professional artists, actors, musicians, and so on who don’t do much formal academic study of their art.

So to sum up, I think HS art classes are typically considered not core classes, and are also often considered more practical than academic (with some possible exceptions). But such classes may also be offered in colleges, and the HS versions may sometimes be valuable preparation for certain specific college minors and majors and such.

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This was our experience as well. My daughter did orchestra both as a violinist and piano accompanist in school but that was very much an easy elective. All her competitions, recitals, theory and composition courses, etc… were outside of school. Big time commitment and a big part of her college application.

That said, the performing arts HS in our community was known to be very rigorous both for the arts and core academics. I just don’t think that’s the norm in most US high schools.

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I agree, I think it is weird too.

I suspect it is because in many places a lot of the classes aren’t very hard, especially at the first levels. (or at min there is a big variation?) Like at my 25s HS some of the performing arts were huge amounts of work and incredibly impressive, but some of the visual arts were pretty easy and had no homework. Note, I think kids learned something and benefit, I think their was value, but was less time / effort outside of class than most classes.