The following blog is republished from the National Association for Music Education's blog, and is authored by Amanda Karhuse.
Following the May announcement of a new partnership to amplify the value of arts education through joint advocacy work, the Educational Theatre Association (EdTA), the National Art Education Association (NAEA), the National Association for Media Arts Education (NAMAE), the National Association for Music Education (NAfME), and the National Dance Education Organization (NDEO) co-hosted a webinar during National Arts in Education Week on September 10 to update members on key federal and state policy issues impacting arts educators.
The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which Congress passed in 2015, shifted the focus from core academic subjects to a well-rounded education, and 鈥渁rts鈥� and 鈥渕usic鈥� were both listed in the definition. Moving forward, a priority for our organizations is to ensure that policymakers at all levels clarify in legislation and guidance that the arts include all five disciplines: dance, media arts, music, theatre, and visual arts.
The organizations have been actively advocating for federal funding under ESSA that can be used to support a well-rounded education (Titles I, II, and IV-A) and the Assistance for Arts Education program. Funding for some of these key programs would be eliminated or severely cut in the House Appropriations Committee FY 2025 bill with the justification that funding provided by the U.S. Department of Education 鈥渟hould be focused on core education such as reading, writing, and math.鈥� As the appropriations process heated up over the summer, an advocacy campaign was launched in July with more than 1,000 arts educators sending 3,000+ messages to their members of Congress. With the upcoming election in November, Congress is expected to pass a continuing resolution and delay final action on the FY 2025 budget until later this fall or early 2025.
We also collaborated with the NAMM Foundation to launch the annual survey on the use of federal funds to support music and arts in September. Data for the 2023鈥�24 school year will help policymakers understand the funding sources for arts education and the multitude of unmet needs schools could address with additional funding. The survey will be open until October 18, and arts educators are encouraged to consult with district-level staff who oversee federal programs and would know best about the dollar amount and use of Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds and Titles I, II, and IV-A funds in your schools.
EdTA, NAEA, NAMAE, NAfME, and NDEO advocate for legislation to ensure equitable access to arts education such as the Arts Education for All Act (H.R. 5463) and the Guarantee Access to Arts and Music Education (GAAME) Act. Under the leadership of the NAfME Advocacy and Public Policy team, they also worked closely with congressional staff to provide feedback on two new bills this Congress. The Reimagining Inclusive Arts Education (H.R. 7261) would create a grant program to provide professional development opportunities for arts educators to better support students with disabilities in their classrooms. Language was also included in the Equitable Arts Education Enhancement Act (H.R. 8943) to ensure that grant funds could be used by historically Black colleges and universities and other minority serving institutions to provide stipends for arts education students to participate in clinical experiences, develop mentoring programs for future arts educators, and pay for arts educators and their mentor teachers to participate in professional learning opportunities.
Our organizations are part of the National Coalition for Arts Standards, which will meet later this fall to develop a process and timeline for reviewing and revising the 2014 national arts standards. We are also members of the Arts Education Partnership, which has a Data Working Group developing recommendations to improve data collection on arts education access and participation. The last time this information was collected by the U.S. Department of Education was the 2009鈥�10 school year through the Fast Response Survey System and published in a 2012 report by the National Center for Education Statistics.
Looking forward, EdTA, NAEA, NAMEA, NAfME, and NDEO will develop A Collective Vision for Equity in Arts Education, launch advocacy campaigns in support of federal legislation and programs to support arts education, assist state affiliates with coalition building on state policy issues, and explore opportunities for arts educators to advocate in a unified voice on Capitol Hill.
Amanda Karhuse is the assistant executive director for advocacy and public policy at the National Association for Music Education (NAfME) where she works with policymakers and other national organizations to promote music and the arts as integral and core component of a well-rounded education. In this role, she coordinates all federal and state policy and advocacy efforts for NAfME, which includes lobbying, coalition-building activities, and strengthening the capacity of music education advocates. Amanda leads the Music Education Policy Roundtable, serves as facilitator for the National Coalition for Art Standards, represents NAfME on the board of directors for the Title IV-A Coalition, and co-chairs the Arts Education Partnership Data Working Group. In 2024, Amanda became the lead federal lobbyist for a new partnership between NAfME and the Educational Theatre Association, the National Art Education Association, the National Association for Media Arts Education, and the National Dance Education Organization known as the Arts Education Alliance. Prior to her tenure at NAfME, Amanda was the director of policy & advocacy for the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) where she advocated for issues of national significance to school leaders and led a research initiative on principal turnover and retention. She also represented NASSP as president of the National Coalition for Technology in Education and Training and as chair of Advocates for Literacy. Amanda worked for four years on Capitol Hill as a legislative assistant for former Congresswoman Karen L. Thurman of Florida and for the Women鈥檚 Congressional Policy Institute before embarking on her career in education policy. She has a bachelor鈥檚 degree from the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, VA, and a master鈥檚 degree from the Elliott School of International Affairs at The George Washington University in Washington, DC. Amanda was a proud member of the Yorktown High School band in Arlington, VA; and she now resides in Leesburg, VA, with her husband, an avid guitarist, and her son who sings in the all-district and all-state choirs and performs in the annual school musical.
To learn more about the updates to arts funding refer to this blog by Helen Buck-Pavlick: Updates on Federal Funding Supports for Dance Education - 2025
Photo credits (from top to bottom): Featured photo by Michelle Connelly, Thomas Giroir, Rikki Ziegelman, BALLROOM BASIX USA, INC.