Why Our High Schools Need the ArtsIn this follow-up to her bestselling book, Why Our Schools Need the Arts, Jessica Hoffmann Davis addresses the alarming drop-out rate in our high schools and presents a thoughtful, evidence-based argument that increasing arts education in the high school curriculum will keep kids in school. Davis shares compelling voices of teachers and their adolescent learners to demonstrate how courses in the arts are relevant and valuable to students who have otherwise become disenfranchised from school. This important book points the way toward rescuing the American high school from inside out by insuring that all students benefit from the compelling and essential learning opportunities that the arts uniquely provide.
Reviews:
In this follow-up to her bestselling book, “Why Our Schools Need the Arts”, Jessica Hoffmann Davis addresses the alarming drop-out rate in our high schools and presents a thoughtful, evidence-based argument that increasing arts education in the high school curriculum will keep kids in school …
– ERIC
The arts have always had a profound impact on our lives, whether it be to express an idea, emotion, or as a way to communicate. Our worldly artistic experiences and knowledge date as far back as the prehistoric period. So why is it that music, dance, drama, and visual arts, all cultural subjects so steeped in human history are, for the most part, always on the cutting block in the educational curriculum? …
-Julie A. M. Smitka,
A must-read for anyone who cares about dropout prevention, Dr. Hoffmann Davis’ latest book is laid out like a map of the developing teenage psyche, leading the reader to a clear understanding of why learning in the arts is critical to adolescent development and engagement in school…
Why our high schools need the arts responds to the ongoing need to advocate for the inclusion of the arts in American schools. “The arts,” writes Jessica Hoffmann Davis, “are regarded as perpetual outsiders, struggling to gain stable ground or even just to get their foot in the door”…