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The arts are essential. They teach students innumerable lessons-practice makes perfect, small differences can have large effects, collaboration leads to creativity. The arts also teach children that there a several paths to take when approaching problems and that all problems can have more than one solution.

Research has also shown impressive benefits of arts education on entire school culture-especially student motivation, attitudes, and attendance. Numerous reports discuss the ways that increased access and involvement in arts education encourage students to stay in school, succeed in school, succeed in life, and succeed in work.

And yet, despite the impressive benefits of arts education, not every student has access to these quality learning experiences. Below are some talking points about both the importance of arts education, as well as the decline of arts education in our country.

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Browse our tools and resources to get started in supporting arts education in your community:

Teaching Artist Companion
Teaching artists are engaging youth in artmaking to promote positive change in their communities. This companion to Aesthetic Perspectives: Attributes of Excellence in Arts for Change, by Dennie Palmer Wolf and Jeannette Rodríguez Píneda shares how teaching artists and institutions that support them are activating the values in the Aesthetic Perspectives framework.

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Let your mighty voice be heard! Tell education leaders why you think the arts are an important aspect of students' lives. Check out these two ways to be a part of the solution:

ARTS EDxchange
Americans for the Arts is home to the International Arts Education Research and Resource Exchange - or ARTS EDxchange - a digital platform fostering engagement and collaboration between arts educators and practitioners from around the world. Open to Americans for the Arts members and non-members alike, ARTS EDxchange is the first international arts education listserv, allowing subscribers the opportunity to share their work with a global audience and access resources on the cutting edge of arts and cultural education.

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A donation to our cause will help us ensure that other arts supporters like you have all the tools and resources they need in order to effectively convey the importance of arts education to anyone.

Americans for the Arts envisions a country where everyone has access to-and takes part in-high quality and lifelong learning experiences in the arts, both in school and in the community. If you support this vision, please consider a donation to support our ongoing work to reach it.

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Learn what public art is, how it is developed and created, and the positive impact public art can have on a community.

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Art Careers & Online Art Classes | The Art Career Project

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Our team spends hundreds of hours reviewing academic performanice, financial data, and graduate outcomes for thousands of art programs.

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Arts Education Unified Statement 2017 (1)

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Americans for the Arts honors Charya Burt and Christopher "Mad Dog" Thomas with the 2022 Johnson Fellowship for Artists Transforming Communities. Each of these extraordinary dance artists demonstrates a sustained commitment to civic participation and makes a positive and meaningful difference to inspire, inform, engage, challenge, animate, and celebrate their communities through arts and culture.

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Advocacy is at the core of what we do. But we can't do it alone. These tools can help you effectively advocate for arts education at the community, state, and national levels.

OAAE offers a variety of professional development programs and resources designed to support arts educators, schools, and school districts.

Our work is possible through partnerships with these organizations.

William R. Young, Ed.D. Supervisor of Curriculum and Instruction Trumbull County Educational Service Center Q: How did you participate in the arts as a child? A: As a child, I would create things using found objects around my house. I enjoyed altering the appearance...

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STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION - OCTOBER MEETING New Graduation Requirements and Extension Discussions The State Board of Education's Achievement & Graduation Requirements Committee voted to approve a plan to change graduation requirements that would begin with the class...

photo credits: Momentum Excellence, Katie Spengler. Jazz Arts Group. Wexner Center for the Arts, Juli Sasaki.

William R. Young, Ed.D. Supervisor of Curriculum and Instruction Trumbull County Educational Service Center Q: How did you participate in the arts as a child? A: As a child, I would create things using found objects around my house. I enjoyed altering the appearance...

STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION - OCTOBER MEETING New Graduation Requirements and Extension Discussions The State Board of Education's Achievement & Graduation Requirements Committee voted to approve a plan to change graduation requirements that would begin with the class...

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Advocacy is at the core of what we do. But we can't do it alone. These tools can help you effectively advocate for arts education at the community, state, and national levels. OAAE offers a variety of professional development programs and resources designed to support arts educators, schools, and school districts.

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Lori Neuenfeldt, coordinator of Mississippi State University's Visual Arts Center Gallery and Outreach Programs, reinforces a lesson about animals with an arts activity. A new report by MSU's Stennis Institute of Government and Community Development finds classroom arts integration can reduce or eliminate students' educational achievement gaps.
Photo by: Megan Bean

STARKVILLE, Miss.--Effective classroom arts integration can reduce or eliminate educational achievement gaps for economically disadvantaged students, according to a Mississippi State University research report.

In other words, when teachers reinforce academic concepts with the arts, students learn more and score higher on standardized tests.

MSU's John C. Stennis Institute of Government and Community Development generated the report, which evaluated the impacts of the Mississippi Whole Schools Initiative. The program supports teachers' efforts to use the arts--composing, painting, drawing or sculpting; playing, singing or listening to music; and dancing and dramatic performance--to foster retention and learning.

Judith Philips, Stennis research associate, headed the development of "Arts Integration and the Mississippi Arts Commission's Whole Schools Initiative: A Stennis Institute Study for Decision-Makers." The report initially was presented at the Mississippi Arts Commission's 2013 Whole Schools Initiative Summer Institute.

Philips said the research verifies that effective arts integration reinforces classroom learning.

"Schools that effectively implement arts integration have either significantly reduced or completely eliminated the educational achievement gap for economically disadvantaged students," she said. "This research indicates that arts integration can achieve that objective in Mississippi public schools."

Currently, almost 5,500 Mississippi students in eight public and four private elementary schools are participating in WSI. The study compared results on language arts and mathematics Mississippi Curriculum Tests, fourth-grade writing assessments and fifth-grade science tests to scores of students not enrolled in arts integrated classrooms.

"The percentage of students scoring 'proficient or above' on standardized tests was significantly higher at schools participating in the Whole Schools Initiative that had effectively implemented the WSI arts integration model, when compared to student performance statewide and when compared to student performance for the school district within which the WSI school was located," Phillips told arts commission participants during her presentation.

Karen Brown, MSU instructor in curriculum, instruction and workforce development, teaches an arts integration course in MSU's College of Education. She said she's not surprised at the Stennis report's findings because students, especially young children, gravitate to learning that way.

"Not only is it repetition, but it's time spent whenever a child is learning something in a different way, that means they're learning it again," Brown said. "They're repeating it, and so the immersion in their learning is a different form--through the arts--but it's also more time spent on the content, so they start thinking critically and creatively."

Brown said all MSU elementary education majors are required to take the arts integration course. She also takes a student group to WSI's annual summer institute.

"Arts integration, from the perspective of a classroom teacher, is teaching both the content area and the arts together, and that takes some special training and special knowledge, but when you do that, it immerses the child in the content," Brown said.

Phillips said arts integration requires quality professional development and mentorships for teachers. Providing that training for teachers requires additional resources that many state school systems may not be able to provide, she acknowledged.

"Given our state's budget constraints, the Stennis Institute recognizes that additional resources to support these efforts will need to come from either federal grants or from philanthropic organizations," Phillips said. "To that end, we collaborated with the arts commission and wrote a grant for the commission to the U.S. Department of Education for an Arts in Education Model Development and Dissemination Program grant."

If awarded, the DOE grant should pay for a national workshop leader and John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts teaching artist to visit Mississippi on a quarterly basis.

Phillips said the visiting expert would provide professional development, conduct student learning initiatives and train state teaching artists in implementing Moving through Math, a curriculum using movement, music, spatial reasoning, and interpersonal skills to teach mathematics, verbal and visual skills.

Brown said parents interested in having their children involved in arts integration should inquire with their respective school system administrators or inform other parents and teachers at parent-teacher organization meetings. Then, local advocates could request the school system apply for a WSI grant.

"I'd like to see increased involvement, funding and awareness from stakeholders, legislators, teachers, parents--everyone," Brown said. "We have data that arts integration is working and making a difference in Mississippi classrooms."

To read the Stennis Institute report's executive summary or entire content, visit www.mswholeschools.org/research/whole-schools-initiative-evaluation-and-....

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MSU research: Effective arts integration improves test scores

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STARKVILLE, Miss.--Effective classroom arts integration can reduce or eliminate educational achievement gaps for economically disadvantaged students, according to a Mississippi State University research report. In other words, when teachers reinforce academic concepts with the arts, students learn more and score higher on standardized tests. MSU's John C.

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Research finds that students who experience arts integrated curricula meet or significantly exceed state and district standardized test averages, even in schools with high populations of at-risk students. In addition, a notable study finds that arts integration programs do not lower test scores, suggesting there is no negative impact on academic achievement in core subjects from an arts-integrated curriculum.

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Jordan Peterson: Why You Need Art in Your Life

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Discovering Courage and Empowerment Through Art | Marika Callangan | TEDxiACADEMY

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Visualize a World Where Support for the Arts Abounds...Take Action!