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Links & Resources

Find the tools, tips, and resources you need to be a successful arts activist! Find organizations that are advancing the arts, resources to help you strengthen your advocacy efforts, and tips to get you started!

Arts Advocacy Centers

Americans for the Arts: Arts Action Center

National Assembly of State Arts Agencies Advocacy

Arts Education Partnership Advocacy

Kennedy Center's ArtsEdge Advocacy Essentials

American Association of Museums Advocacy

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Arts Advocacy Resources

NAEP Toolkit. Information about the Nation’s Arts Report Card will be posted as it becomes available. We hope that these additional resources and documents will be helpful not only in understanding the NAEP, but also as a guide to communicating about it. The existence of the NAEP arts assessment is an important acknowledgment that the arts are a core subject and that they can be rigorously assessed; moreover, results of the arts assessment portray the current levels of opportunity for American children to learn important knowledge and skills essential to being an educated person. Let’s use this opportunity to start and continue important conversations about learning in the arts!

Learning in a Visual Age. Listen to what your colleagues are saying are the critical topics for the field as we move into an increasingly visual age, and find out how to continue the conversation in your own community. Read the monograph, Learning in a Visual Age: The Critical Importance of Visual Arts Education

"10 Lessons the Arts Teach" by Elliott Eisner | View it as a bookmark pdf
Share this information! Download an electronic handout featuring Eisner's "10 Lessons the Arts Teach." pdf

"Does Experience in the Arts Boost Academic Achievement?" by Elliot W. Eisner, Stanford University, National Art Education Association, 1998 (scanned) pdf

"Arts and Academic Improvement Executive Summary" from the Project Zero Report, from NAEA's Translations

ASCD Advocacy Kit

NAEA's "A Visual Art Teacher Is..." pdf

"Learning and the Arts: Crossing Boundaries Report" pdf

National Arts Task Force - Arts at the Core
Comprised of more than 50 leading educators and artists, the National Task Force on the Arts in Education (NTFAE) was created in 2008 to address the opportunities and challenges facing arts education in the United States. The NTFAE advises the College Board by recommending strategies for placing the arts at the core of elementary, secondary, and postsecondary education. These strategies include:

Researching underserved student populations.
Promoting student creativity.
Understanding the arts in a global perspective.
Integrating the arts into a greater number of College Board programs.
Engaging a greater number of professional artists in arts education.
Building partnerships and affecting policy at the national, state, and local levels.

Download the group's conclusions:

Full report: "Arts at the Core: Recommendations for advancing the state of arts education in the 21^st Century" pdf [2.4MB].
The NTFAE's report, "Arts at the Core: Recommendations for advancing the state of arts education in the 21^st Century" confronts challenges to the state of the arts in education, identifies the many benefits of arts learning, and details eight key recommendations for advancing the place of the arts in American education. It outlines recommendations for making the arts a core component of American education.

For more information, read the brochure, "Arts at the Core" pdf [2.8MB].
This brochure introduces you to the voices and ideas that make up the NTFAE. Learn more about the importance of the arts in education through these essays from leading thinkers and policy makers in arts education.

NAEA State of the Arts Advocacy Report-Southeastern States pdf

New Project Zero Study Highlights Importance of Arts Educators. Many children in the United States have little or no opportunity for formal arts instruction and access to arts learning experiences remains a critical national challenge. Additionally, the quality of arts learning opportunities that are available to young people is a serious concern. Understanding this second challenge -- the challenge of creating and sustaining high quality formal arts learning experiences for K-12 youth, inside and outside of school -- is the focus of a new report from Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. (Staff News Editor, 6/30/09)

Visual Arts in After School Programs PDF . Art can be an important element in after school programs whose missions are to address the needs of the whole child. Through artmaking, children are often able to make sense of their world and their roles within it. Children may be more comfortable in the more informal activities and programs offered in after school care, as they may have opportunities to select from an array of activities to meet their needs and interests.

Why Art Education?

Why Our Schools Need The Arts, Jessica Hoffmann Davis
[150pgs.{2008}ISBN 978-0-80774834-3]. This inspiring book leads the way toanew kind of advocacy-one that stops justifying the arts as useful tolearning othersubjects and argues instead for the powerful lessons that the arts, like no other subjects, teach our children. Davis offers a set of principles and tools that will be invaluable to advocates already working hard to make the case and secure a strong place for the arts in education. Purchase this book from NAEA for $20.00 (member)/$22.00 (non-member).For more information, visit the online Store.