To kick off National Arts Advocacy Day on Tuesday, March 21, Americans for the Arts sent a message in three frequently read newspapers to legislators and staffers on Capitol Hill about the importance of the National Endowment for the Arts.

The Ford Foundation president will speak March 20, 2017, at 6:30 p.m. at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Tickets are free, but seating is limited.

Vans invites high school art students throughout the country to join in the eighth annual Vans Custom Culture art competition to embrace youth creativity and support arts education. Starting today, high school art teachers can register their classes to compete for the grand prize of $50,000 towards their art program by creating their most artistic and inventive designs using blank Vans shoes as their canvas.

Today, at an event held at the National Intrepid Center of Excellence (NICoE), part of Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the Department of Defense (DoD) announced the expansion of their partnership and military healing arts program into Creative Forces: NEA Military Healing Arts Network. 

On May 27, the Smithsonian National Zoo, in partnership with the community-based environmental advocacy non-profit The Washed Ashore Project , opened the “Washed Ashore: Art to Save the Sea” exhibit. Featuring 17 larger-than-life sculptures made from plastic pollution from the oceans, the free exhibit, which will conclude Sept.

On Monday, February 22, the National Association of Counties (NACo) approved an arts resolution at their annual Legislative Conference in Washington. The resolution supports the promotion of the arts and culture in America’s counties, and allows NACo to lobby and advocate for arts-related issues on Capitol Hill. It is evident that NACo is in strong support of increased funding for federal arts organizations.

It has been a big day in Washington with agreements on both Fiscal Year 2016 funding and expired tax provisions impacting charitable giving.

The Every Student Succeeds Act, signed into law last Thursday, includes the arts alongside math and language arts in its definition of a "well-rounded education." That ensures that arts education programs and teachers are eligible to receive federal funds through provisions such as Title I, which supports disadvantaged students, and Title II, which supports teachers. 

On Wednesday, December 9, the Senate passed the Every Student Succeeds Act 85-12, on the heels of its passage in the House last week.

The bill — which the president is scheduled to sign Thursday, 12/9 — would "dump the current law’s intense focus on test scores and the well-intentioned but impossible goal of having all students reading and calculating at grade level." We're one step closer to saying a permanent farewell to the widely unpopular No Child Left Behind Act. 

Turnaround Arts and Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts announce a national partnership to support arts-integrated learning in early childhood classrooms across the country. Through in-class services for young children, ongoing training for educators, and resource development for the early childhood community at-large, the two organizations will work together to use the arts as a tool to improve student outcomes and school culture.

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Americans for the Arts, the leading organization for advancing the arts and arts education in America, announces its annual National Arts Awards honorees. The awards recognize artists and arts leaders who exhibit exemplary national leadership and whose work demonstrates extraordinary achievement. They are individuals who share a common belief in the power of the arts and arts education to enrich individual lives and communities alike.

This year’s National Arts awards recipients are:

Arlington Sons, a moving musical performance accompanied by select ensemble members of the USAF Band, is currently touring the DC area, with performances at Arlington, VA on September 21 and the Bowie Theater in MD on September 25, 2014.