Reinvesting in Arts Education Report

Everybody that cares about supporting the arts and music in public schools should read this report, drafted in May 2011 by President Obama’s "Committee on the Arts and the Humanities"

-- download full report HERE or by clicking on image below

 

"Reinvesting in Arts Education: Winning America’s Future Through Creative Schools details the powerful role that arts education strategies can play in closing the achievement gap, improving student engagement, and building creativity and nurturing innovative thinking skills...Education is one of our nation’s most important investments. And an education without the arts is incomplete...Failure to invest in a well-rounded education for our children will thwart our efforts to lead in a new economy where critical thinking and creativity will be the keys to success...Arts education can’t be an afterthought — an investment that our schools can make only after they’ve solved all the other challenges they face. Instead, we must see it as a tool for keeping students more engaged, for closing achievement gaps and lowering dropout rates".
-- Melody Barnes, Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council

Some extracts below:

"When young people are involved with the arts, something changes in their lives."
-- Champions of Change: The Impact of the Arts on Learning, 1999, arts education Partnership and the President’s Committee on the arts and the Humanities

"The first step in winning the future is encouraging American innovation. None of us can predict with certainty what the next big industry will be or where the new jobs will come from. Thirty years ago, we couldn’t know that something called the Internet would lead to an economic revolution. What we can do - what America does better than anyone else - is spark the creativity and imagination of our people. But if we want to win the future then we also have to win the race to educate our kids... And so the question is whether all of us - as citizens, and as parents - are willing to do what’s necessary to give every child a chance to succeed". 
-- President Obama, State of the Union address, January 25, 2011

"Nothing - nothing - is more important in the long-run to American prosperity than boosting the skills and attainment of the nation’s students… Closing the achievement gap and closing the opportunity gap is the civil rights issue of our generation. One quarter of U.S. high school students drop out or fail to graduate on time. Almost one million students leave our schools for the streets each year. That is economically unsustainable and morally unacceptable". 
-- Arne Duncan, U. S. Secretary of education

"Our future as an innovative country depends on ensuring that everyone has access to the arts and to cultural opportunity … But the intersection of creativity and commerce is about more than economic stimulus, it’s also about who we are as people. The President and I want to ensure that all children have access to great works of art at museums. We want them to have access to great poets and musicians in theaters around the country, to arts education in their schools and community workshops". 
 -- Michelle Obama