January 31, 2008
Imagine… Students with Imagination
Educational Theater Association

With the 2008 presidential campaign in full-swing, candidates might want to add another issue to their already large repertoire of talking points—the importance of imagination in education.

According to a new national study conducted by Lake Research Partners, 30 percent of American voters are displeased with the current emphasis on “the basics” in the nations’ school systems and want to see more attention paid to subjects that stimulate students’ creativity.

Nine in ten of the 1,000 people polled said that healthy imaginations in young people contribute significantly to a nation’s ability to compete in the global economy, with 88 percent of respondents expressing the view that arts education is an essential component toward developing that imagination.

These feelings are likely to come out at the voting booths, the study suggests, with 56 percent of respondents saying they were more likely to vote for a candidate who supports more government funding for imagination-centered education, and 57 percent saying they would be much less likely to vote for a candidate who intends to slash such funding.

Over half of those surveyed identified themselves as “swing” voters, or voters who do not have a strong party affiliation, a demographic some say could determine the outcome of the upcoming presidential election.

“The data show a large population we call the ‘imagine nation’ are hungry for imagination in education and are going to take action accordingly—both in their local schools and at the voting booth, so that children are prepared for the world in which they will live,” said Celinda Lake, president of Lake Research Partners.

These findings follow on the heels of a survey conducted by the Conference Board in 2006 in which three-fourths of the nation’s top business leaders said that creativity and innovation were among the top five skills likely to increase in importance for America’s high school graduates.

In response to these studies, a coalition of national, state, and local organizations has formed to bring imagination-centered education to the forefront of learning. Members of this coalition, which includes representatives from the National Education Association, the National Association of Music Manufacturers, the International Music Products Association, the Ford Foundation, the George Gund Foundation and the Arts Education Partnership, are meeting with Congress and alerting state education leaders and boards to the study’s results.

Richard J. Deasy, director of the Arts Education Partnership, has briefed Congressional staff on the study and called it the clearest statement of the American public’s support for arts education that he has ever witnessed. The sheer number of voters dissatisfied with public education’s test-focused curriculum is proving persuasive to legislators, he said, many of whom are preparing to vote on a reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind act.

“I would hope that policy makers at every level, not just elected officials but education leaders, realize that the American public wants them to have an approach to learning in schools that makes stimulating the imaginative capacities of students a primary outcome. This study shows that voters believe that arts are essential to students becoming good citizens and innovators in the work place, and therefore we need to see more commitment on the part of policy makers to increasing the time devoted to arts instruction in schools. Our goal is to see a greater place for arts instruction in public schools and this information shows that this is what the public wants as well,” he said.