Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

In this presentation we will provide the results of a cluster RCT of Houston’s Arts Access Initiative (AAI). The AAI has been implemented in the Houston Independent School District’s (HISD) schools since 2015-16. This initiative has increased children’s access to the arts primarily through school-community partnerships with local arts organizations, cultural institutions, and teaching-artists. Due to oversubscription and the desire of AAI designers to gradually rollout the program, we were able to administer a clustered RCT, where 21 schools served as the treatment group and 21 served as the control group, to rigorously examine the impacts of the AAI.

We find that the AAI induced the receipt of just under ten enriching arts educational experiences, on average, provided through a broad variety of formats (before/afterschool programs, field trips, in-school performances, and teaching-artist residencies) and disciplines (dance, music, theater, and visual arts). We find that, overall, the substantial increase in arts educational experiences improves student discipline, writing achievement, and compassion for others. When restricting analyses to elementary schools (86 percent of the sample), we also find positive effects on school engagement, college aspirations, and arts-facilitated empathy.

The findings from this study fill longstanding voids in arts education research. By leveraging this opportunity to assess school-level participation in the AAI via random assignment, this study is the most rigorous causal investigation to date to assess the benefits of arts education. As such, these findings will inform policymakers, arts advocates, and PK-12 educators on how to best utilize community resources to benefit students.