Northern Ontario disproportionately affected by decline in arts education, survey finds

New survey results from a public education advocacy group show that access to arts education in Ontario schools has fallen significantly over the past decade and northerners are among those most affected.

Just 14 per cent of northern Ontario elementary schools thatresponded to the People for Education survey have music teachers compared to more than 60 per cent in central Ontario and the Greater Toronto Area.

"The difference is enormous in that way," said Annie Kidder, the executive director of the organization.

"It continues to surprise me that, seemingly, policymakers and politicians I don't know don't seem to care that there is thisdifficulty for the north."

Northern schools tend to be smaller and more spread out, making it harder to fund specialist teachers, Kidder said.

But people seem to have simply accepted that northern schools will have less, she added.

People for Education surveyed every school in Ontarioto ask about students' access to music teachers, choirs, school bands and other opportunities, Kidder said.

Around 1,200 schools responded a response rate of 20 to 25 per cent.

Key findings:

Particularly alarming, Kidder said, was the fact that schools in more affluent neighbourhoods were more likely to offer arts education, while students in lower income areas were deprived of it.

"They have more capacity to fund what now have become extras," she said..

"And that, along with there are also geographic differences is really, really worrying in terms of that inequitable access to the arts."

Kidder blamed the decline in arts education on a rising back-to-basicsmentalitythat prioritizes core subjects such as reading, writing and math over others.

"Sometimes what happens in a trend like that is that we start to think of the arts as an extra or a frill," she said.

Reading, writing and math are important, she added, and so isaccountability, but the arts have been getting squeezed out all together as boards struggle with financial pressures.

"It's hard for them to choose," she said.

Kidder suggests many boards might be hesitant to spend money on music teachersas opposed to in the areas for which they're being held more accountable.

Shesaysarts education teaches children important life skills, such as critical thinking, problem solving and collaboration.

She says it also give them an appreciation of different cultures.