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For Immediate Release

Three-year Initiative to Focus on the Value of the Arts to America's Young People
Americans for the Arts Chairman Michael H. Jordan Makes White House Announcement

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Americans for the Arts today unveiled a three-year national campaign to bring much needed attention to the value of the arts to America's children. YOUTH ARTS USA was announced by Americans for the Arts Chairman Michael H. Jordan, Chairman and CEO of The CBS Corporation, at a White House event hosted by First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.

"For years, many of us supported arts education because we thought it was part of a well-rounded education," said Jordan, "but that was before we discovered the role of arts education to learning math and other critical skills. Americans for the Arts is proud to be among those providing the proof that an arts education is essential to a child's basic development. Youth Arts USA will combine rigorous research with a broader public appeal to make sure the arts are in every classroom and a part of every child's learning."

As part of the initiative, CBS has developed a series of public service announcements featuring popular stars such as Christine Lahti, Dick Van Dyke, Ray Romano, Brian Benben, Roma Downey, Della Reese, Hector Elizondo, Faith Ford, Jerry Stiller, Jason Beghe, Kevin James, Dennis Farina and Don Johnson speaking out about how the arts benefit young people. Several of these PSA's premiered at today's event, and the series will run on CBS beginning in October, which is National Arts and Humanities Month.

This is the second year that CBS and Americans for the Arts have worked together to create powerful messages about the role of the arts in the lives of all Americans. Last year's PSA series, "The Arts Enrich Us All," laid the groundwork for Youth Arts USA's public awareness campaign, which was expanded to include other media partners such as The Ad Council, BRAVO, The Film and Arts Network, Time Warner Cable, Ovation and others.

In addition to the public awareness campaign, Youth Arts USA will focus on research and policy development. As a national research center, Americans for the Arts maintains a
database of more than 1,000 arts programs that deal with curriculum development, youth at risk, academic performance, workplace success and other arts education issues. As
part of this research, Americans for the Arts is conducting studies on the positive effects of the arts on child development, and recently published research linking arts involvement to high academic performance, increased standardized test scores, more community service and lower drop-out rates.

As part of the policy development component of its three-year initiative, Americans for the Arts will hold a Youth Arts Summit in Atlanta this spring. This event will explore issues of child development and the arts with experts in the fields of education, youth services, community development and the arts. Eighty-nine percent of the nation's 4,000 local arts
agencies increase the quality of education by supporting artists in the schools, designing arts-in-education curricula and advocating for arts education. This summit represents just one of the policy discussions slated for the next three years in which arts education will be a key focus.

"The evidence of the value of arts education is all around us," said Americans for the Arts President and CEO Robert Lynch. "We see it in well-designed cities, in creative competitive workplaces, in schools where academic excellence is the norm, in the eloquence of our most noted leaders, and in the faces of the children who will lead us into the 21st century.

"We are proud to join with the First Lady today to demonstrate our commitment to arts education, knowing that America's future depends on it," said Lynch.

Youth Arts USA is made possible through generous support from The GE Fund, The Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts, Binney & Smith Inc., The U.S. Department of Justice, National Endowment for the Arts, The George Gund Foundation, The Coca-Cola Foundation, PepsiCo, Inc., The Metropolitan Life Foundation, The Streisand Foundation, and The Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation.