Wyoming Arts Council

American for the Arts: Keep the Arts Alive in Education Reform


This action alert comes from Americans for the Arts in Washington, D.C.:

Action Alert

Sign the National Petition to Keep the Arts Alive in Education Reform

The House will begin today on a series of education reform amendments to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). What Congress does now could have a devastating impact on arts education for years to come. While most of these votes will go down along party lines, some may succeed in securing bipartisan support as a result of grassroots pressure from constituents back home. Congress will continue working on this issue for several weeks as it goes through similar legislative steps in the Senate and negotiations with the White House.

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We’ve developed a nationwide petition to Congress and President Obama with specific actions to be taken in order to keep the arts alive in education reform legislation. Please sign this petition and get 5 of your friends to do the same. We will keep this petition open for a month and then deliver it to Congress and the President.

Petition Text

Dear President Obama and Members of Congress,

As concerned citizens about the future of K-12 public education in America, we urge you to specifically support and promote arts education as an integral component of Elementary and Secondary Education (ESEA). We urge you to include the following in any education reform bill:

  1. Retain the arts in the ‘core academic subject’ definition.
  2. Retain arts education as an eligible use of Title I funds – the largest portion of federal assistance for disadvantaged students.
  3. Include specific new language to include arts educators as eligible for Title II professional development support.
  4. Include arts education as a priority in any proposed local competitive grant program.
  5. Retain the federal Arts in Education program, which has supported over 200 model grant programs over the last decade.
  6. Retain the 21st Century Community Learning Center after-school program, which supports arts education.

We hope that you will keep these policy considerations in mind during floor consideration and as the education reform process moves forward.

Thank you for supporting arts education.


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