S. 5635
Arts Education for All Act
Sponsor: Ben Ray Luján
1 cosponsor
Official summary
Written by the Congressional Research Service.
Arts Education for All Act
This bill expands arts education and programming for children in early education, K-12 students, and juveniles and adults in the criminal justice system.
Specifically, the bill allows Child Care and Development Block Grant funding to be used for additional activities, including arts programming.
Additionally, the bill addresses arts programming in elementary and secondary schools by
- directing each state educational agency to include information on arts programming in its state plan, including how it will integrate arts education instruction into the curriculum and increase the number of arts teachers in schools;
- requiring state report cards to include information on arts courses;
- requiring local educational agency (LEA) plans to describe how the LEA will encourage the use of arts education to improve student achievement; and
- allowing certain funds to be used for professional development for arts teachers.
The bill directs the National Center for Education Research to carry out research on the use of arts and arts education in elementary and secondary schools, including in low-performing schools. Further, the National Center for Education Statistics must compile data on arts education.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress must include a specified arts assessment.
The bill requires a state's juvenile justice and delinquency plan to describe how the state will coordinate services and activities for juvenile justice and delinquency prevention with arts agencies and arts organizations. Additionally, grants for adult offender reentry demonstration projects may be used for facilitating arts education.
Text of the bill
I Early Childhood Education Programs
II Amendments to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965
(a) Section 1111(g) (20 U.S.C. 6311(g)) is amended by adding at the end the following:
(5) Use of arts education to improve student achievement. Each State’s plan shall describe how the State educational agency will—
(A) support and encourage the offering of a variety of arts education experiences to students as part of the State educational agency’s overall strategy to improve student achievement in the subjects described in section 8101(52);
(B) integrate arts education instruction into the curriculum;
(C) increase the number of arts educators, including arts education specialists, in schools;
(D) utilize partnerships with specialized teaching artists to train teachers to augment creative thinking techniques into the instruction provided in math, reading, English language arts, science, and other subjects described in section 8101(52);
(E) ensure that arts instruction provided in the State is standards-based, as applicable, and sequential with arts courses offered in the grades 6 through 12 building upon such courses offered in earlier grades;
(F) increase the number of classes taught by arts educators, including arts education specialists, with a particular focus on classes with high percentages of students who are low-income, students with disabilities, English learners, or students of color; and
(G) support partnerships that increase the amount of arts education and creative youth development available in afterschool and summer learning programs.
(b) Section 1112(b) (20 U.S.C. 6312(b)) is amended—
(1) in paragraph (12), by striking and at the end;
(2) by redesignating paragraph (13) as paragraph (14); and
(3) by inserting after paragraph (12) the following:
(13) how the local educational agency will support learning in the arts and encourage the use of the arts education to improve student achievement consistent with section 1111(g)(5); and
III Amendments to the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974 and to the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968
IV Amendments to the Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002 and the National Assessment of Educational Progress Authorization Act