In 1999, a consortium of education, arts, business and government organizations drafted the Goals 2000 National Standards for Arts Education. These guidelines recommended that arts education be integrated with other studies. Though such a change seemed like a step in the right direction, the program failed when it reached the schools. Teachers couldn't comply with the standards because they didn't know enough about the arts to include them in a discussion of other subjects. This failure highlighted another problem.
Teachers are the product of the same hard-boundaried education system that students face today.
So if a change is to be made, it must be in the way that teachers are trained. We have to give teachers the skills to address all aspects of what they teach. Isolation of the arts from other subjects has contributed to their marginalization, but the problem has been amplified by another effect of the hard-boundaried system. According to Detels, this not only gives students a fractured view of artistic expression, but it also makes art programs easier to cut from the curriculum. School officials faced with a budget crisis may find themselves weighing music against dance.