By huge majorities, art teachers think No Child Left Behind has not helped their students, has not made them better teachers and has not had a positive effect on art education, according to a national survey released last week.

That's probably not a surprise, given widespread concerns about narrowing curriculum and the arts and music being shortchanged by accountability programs. But the survey, commissioned by the National Art Education Association, is the first we've seen that sought to measure how much discontent is out there from this group of teachers specifically. More specifically, the survey found:

• 67 percent of teachers said NCLB has not helped their students become better learners.
• 89 percent said it had a negative impact on faculty morale.
• 73 percent said it had a negative effect on their attitude about being an art teacher.
• 58 percent said their workloads had increased because of it (apparently because they're backing up teachers in other subjects such as reading and math).

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