Most educators believe that creativity and the arts should be an important part of the school day. But the arts have been struggling to hold their place in the curriculum. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, with its mandatory annual testing on math and reading, has increased pressure on schools to demonstrate that their students are proficient in math and reading. Low math and reading scores in some school districts have led to an increasing emphasis on teaching these basic skills. When these pressures are combined with tight budgets, as is often the case in districts with high percentages of underprivileged students, administrators often choose to dedicate a larger percentage of the budget to math and literacy instruction. In exchange, the amount invested in arts education is reduced or removed completely. It is ironic that the arts are losing their place in school curricula while creativity is increasingly in demand around the globe. In the last several decades, many of the world's most developed countries have shifted from an industrial economy to a knowledge economy (e.g., Bell, 1973; Drucker, 1993). Scholars of the knowledge age have argued that creativity, innovation, and ingenuity are more important today than ever before. Florida (2002) argued that “we now have an economy powered by human creativity” (pp. 5–6) and that human creativity is “the defining feature of economic life” (p. 21). Two recent best-selling books have extended Florida's argument to the international arena.
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