Like Avis, the car rental company, arts teachers try harder. They have to in order to be heard, to boost their numbers and correct misperceptions about the arts.

Art teachers cannot just say they need more classroom time or more money and expect results, said Marilyn Narey, former art department chairwoman at Canon-McMillan High School. They have to work to get it. How much support a district gives the arts depends on several factors.

"It depends on the community, the efforts and arts teachers themselves. I know whenever I went to Canon-McMillan in 1993, I had to demonstrate the importance of art," said Narey, who has won grants and recognition for her innovative classes.

Art teachers have had to try harder, she said. Although they should be considered equal to their academic counterparts, they are not.

Slowly but surely, however, arts teachers are gaining ground and earning respect. According to Beth Cornell, fine arts and humanities adviser for the state Department of Education, public school art, music, dance and drama teachers this year total 8,280 statewide. There were 7,334 in 1994.

The arts also are earning recognition from outside academia. The American Music Conference named Trinity Area School District this year, for the third time in six years, to its list of Best 100 Communities for Music Education in America. Teachers are very excited about the recognition, said William Galvin, band director and music department chairman, who attributes community and administrative support for making the music program special.

No longer the stepchild of curriculum, arts courses are identified as core subjects. Arts advocates have the Goals 2000 Educate America Act to thank for that. In Pennsylvania, the arts must be taught at the elementary, middle and high school levels. Humanities are taught in high school.

Missing, however, are specific guidelines on how much time must be devoted to any curriculum at any level. That's left up to each school district.

One of the problems, as Narey sees it, is that, too often, the public perceives art as only about beauty and entertainment, and therefore of value only because of its decorative aspects.

Art, she said, has a lot of different purposes, one of which is communication. Its value as a mode of communication is being made all the more clear in the age of the Internet.

The National Council of Teachers of English issued a position statement recognizing there is more to education than reading and writing. Students have to be literate in graphics and arts, too, said Narey, on sabbatical from Canon-McMillan.

A lot of people believe the primary purpose of schools is to prepare students for work. In today's workplace, the focus is really on ideas, bringing them to life and communicating them, Narey said. What happens in a good art class is discovery, working through a problem and communication.

Washington and Jefferson College President Tori Haring-Smith couldn't agree more. There's no question, she said, that being an artist involves problem solving. When artists are creating, they are facing a complex problem-solving environment, said Haring-Smith, whose background is in drama and theater.

As a Brown University faculty member, she advised students about curriculum, suggesting they take a course that has a right answer, such as math, and a course where there is no possibility of one right answer, such as history. For example, there are plenty of reasons for the Civil War.

Finally, she urged, "Take a course in which you express yourself but where you're not just trying to fit your mind into someone else's construct."

That the public has trouble understanding the importance of arts in education comes as no surprise to Haring-Smith.

"I think that's part of American pragmatism. American culture is much more pragmatic," she said. "The arts need to be a core subject. I really worry without that, we're not providing students with a way to express themselves. Pragmatism reduces our respect for play."

Where would society be, for example, without the creative play and thinking involved in economics, science or architecture?

Still, there's an ongoing debate among teachers about whether or how the arts help students in other subjects. For example, learning to read a quarter note in music could help a child understand fractions, or, by learning about Andy Warhol, a teacher could engage a child in writing or reading, Cornell said. The flip side of the debate is that learning about the arts is important in and of itself.

Narey cautions: "You don't justify teaching history because it improves math scores. Art has value in itself," she said.

Avella Acting Superintendent Robert Loughry is wary of claims about how art helps learning in other subjects. It's hard to prove students do well in other areas as a result of arts enrollment, he said. It's stretching the imagination.

"If I was asking a teacher to be sure those things were incorporated into the curriculum, I think I would be out in left field."

Still Loughry, who oversees a rural district of 700 students, believes the arts definitely have their place. It's extremely important because it provides a creative outlet for children who might not otherwise have one.

Then, too, some people do not understand that children excel in a variety of ways, he said. Some intelligence can be expressed in developing sight and sound through music and art.

"As I was studying for my doctorate, one of the things I learned is, there's more than academic intelligence. You have some children who excel in fine arts who aren't excelling in academic areas. To ignore that in education would be a big mistake," he said.

As the debate about how or whether art enhances learning in other subjects continues, studies are under way. One such evaluation is Project Art Smart, a two-phase pilot program in rural Warren County. Funded by a nearly $1.6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education, Warren County in northwestern Pennsylvania is one of 11 regions nationwide studying whether arts instruction affects learning in academic subjects.

Barbara Kersey, project director of Project Art Smart I, said an increase in test scores thus far has not been shown. The project involves two pilot sites and two control sites involving pupils in kindergarten through fourth grades. Test scores of pupils whose teachers are trained to infuse art into classrooms are compared with those whose arts and academic courses are taught in the traditional way.

While others debate whether arts enhance other subjects or whether it is of value as a stand-alone discipline, Haring-Smith questions the disagreement.

"I don't think they're unrelated. It's not an either-or [situation]," she said. "Art is valuable for both reasons. Let's just accept the arts are important."