Nearly three in four New York City middle and high school students did not participate in any art activities this year, whether before school, after school, or during a free period, according to survey results released by the Department of Education yesterday.

Fifty-four percent of students said they did not participate in an art class.

About 80% of the students, or more than 400,000, completed the surveys, which help determine schools’ report card grades. Test scores make up the bulk of each grade, but parent, teacher, and student satisfaction is also considered; along with attendance figures, they comprise 15% of the report card.

Overall, parents, students, and teachers said they are very satisfied with their schools.

Ninety-four percent of parents said they are satisfied with their child’s school this year, up from 90% last year.

Teacher satisfaction also appeared to spike; more teachers than last year said individual learning goals are a priority, and more teachers said their school maintains “order and discipline.”

Students reported overwhelmingly that they were encouraged by their teachers and that they were expected to continue their education past high school.

Yet asked whether their school provides a “wide enough variety of classes and activities” to keep them interested, 39% said no.

Mayor Bloomberg yesterday said the school system is right to prioritize basic skills.

“Our first mission is reading, writing, arithmetic,” he said.

“Having said that, it’s a balance,” he added. “We only have the children for a certain amount of hours per day, so many days a year, and we have to set priorities, because we have to decide what’s most in their interest to do. And we also have to set priorities because we have limited resources.”

Half of students said they were not offered art activities, and 24% said they were offered activities but chose not to participate in them. There are also categories for music, dance, and theater activities, and some students said they participated in those — 22%, 14%, and 10%, respectively.

More than half of students, 56%, said they were not offered a foreign language class.

One-quarter of students said they had to write at least five essays or projects during the year defending their own ideas, with evidence from multiple sources; 34% said they had to do so one or two times in the year, and 10% said they never had to.