AP English Language — Claims and Evidence — Writing Drill 3

The following is a draft of a student argumentative essay defending arts education in public schools, written for an AP English class. [1] Arts education is frequently the first thing cut when school budgets tighten, and this pattern reflects a misunderstanding of what the arts actually teach. [2] Music, visual art, theater, and dance are not extracurricular enrichment. [3] They are academic disciplines that develop skills essential to success in school, work, and civic life. [4] The research on arts education consistently finds benefits that extend well beyond artistic skill. [5] Studies have found that students who participate in arts programs show stronger performance in reading and mathematics, higher graduation rates, and lower rates of chronic absenteeism. [6] These correlations are especially pronounced among students from low-income households, for whom arts programs frequently provide the only structured opportunity for creative problem-solving, collaborative work, and sustained attention to a complex task. [7] Arts education also develops capacities that are difficult to teach through conventional academic subjects: the ability to tolerate ambiguity, revise work in response to feedback, and produce something original under constraints. [8] These are not soft skills. [9] They are precisely the capacities that employers in fields ranging from engineering to healthcare to business consistently identify as most lacking in new hires. [10] Critics argue that schools face pressure to prioritize tested subjects — reading, mathematics, and science — and that arts courses divert time from these priorities. [11] But this framing misunderstands the relationship between arts education and academic performance. [12] Arts programs do not compete with academic achievement; the research suggests they support it, particularly for students who are disengaged from conventional academic formats. [13] The decision to cut arts programs is rarely based on evidence. [14] It is based on a budget logic that assigns value only to what can be directly measured, and arts outcomes are harder to put on a standardized test than reading scores. [15] But 'harder to measure' is not the same as 'less valuable.' [16] A school system that eliminates what it cannot measure is not being rigorous. [17] It is being incurious.