Back to School with Arts Education

As families and educators ready children to go back to school, the National Endowment for the Arts recognizes the important role of the arts in educating, engaging, and empowering youth, while also supporting the social and emotional learning needs of students, helping them to succeed both in and out of school.

See below for more information on the benefits of arts education on wellness, resources that can support the advancement of arts education in communities across the country, and stories and interviews about the ways arts education can provide students with outlets for expression and growth, while also helping to close the opportunity gap and help all students thrive.

Arts Education and Student Wellness

Involvement in the arts can support the social and emotional learning needs of students, including teaching students how to manage their emotions and have compassion for others. The arts can also provide an outlet for students to process their emotions from disaster and trauma to begin the healing process and build resiliency, a key factor to successful transitions back to school. Explore the Arts Education Partnership’s ArtsEdSearch for recent studies on healing and wellness outcomes as well as blog posts discussing such topics as the connection between arts education and student wellness.

NEA Grants to Support Arts Education

The NEA’s arts education grant funding supports opportunities for students to participate in the arts in communities of all sizes across the country by

• providing opportunities for PreK to 12th-grade students to experience arts;
• ensuring educators, teaching artists, and school leaders have the necessary training in arts education to support student learning; and
• transforming schools and communities by providing access and engagement in the arts for all students through collective, systemic approaches.

Close to 75 percent of NEA-supported arts education projects engage underserved populations.

The NEA also provides research grants for arts education studies and supports Research Labs with an “Arts, Creativity, Cognition, and Learning” focus.

Using Data to Understand Access to Arts Education

Data can be a powerful way to understand what kinds of arts education opportunities are available in your community. The State Data Infrastructure Project for Arts Education, a free resource from the NEA and the Education Commission of the States, provides tools to help states and their partners extract, analyze, and report on data about arts education. Funding is available through the NEA to support arts education data systems.

Advancing Arts Education through the Arts Education Partnership

The Arts Education Partnership (AEP) is a national network of more than 250 organizations dedicated to advancing arts education. AEP has been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts and the U.S. Department of Education since 1995 and is administered by Education Commission of the States. AEP is the nation’s hub for arts and education leaders, building their leadership capacity to support students, educators, and learning environments. Through research, reports, convenings, and counsel, leaders gain knowledge and insights to ensure that all learners receive an excellent arts education.

NEA Arts Education Initiatives

In addition to AEP, the NEA supports national arts education initiatives that seek to engage students from across the country through a variety of artistic disciplines.

The 2024-2025 school year marks the 20th anniversary of Poetry Out Loud, a free arts education program and dynamic poetry recitation competition for high school students. A partnership among the NEA, the Poetry Foundation, and state and jurisdictional arts agencies, Poetry Out Loud lifts poetry off the page, creating community and connection. Schools and organizations are encouraged to contact their Poetry Out Loud state coordinator to get involved in this year’s competition.

As of August 1, 2024, submissions are open for the 2024-2025 Musical Theater Songwriting Challenge for High School Students. An initiative of the NEA in partnership with the National Alliance for Musical Theatre (NAMT), the Musical Theater Songwriting Challenge is opportunity for high school students to develop and showcase musical compositions that could be a part of a musical theater production. There are multiple free virtual workshops leading up to the submission deadline, January 31, 2025. Head to namt.org/challenge for more information. 

Shakespeare in American Communities, a partnership between the NEA and Arts Midwest, provides grants of up to $25,000 that connect young people across the country to Shakespeare’s plays. Grants support performances and workshops in schools and in the justice system. Application guidelines for the 2025-2026 cycle will be available later this fall on the Arts Midwest website.

Featured Arts Education Stories

Back to School Grant Spotlight: Vashon Center for the Arts (VCA)

In January 2024, VCA received an Arts Endowment grant to support the work of Vashon Artists in Schools (VAIS), a collaborative program with the Vashon Island School District that offers year-round K-12 classroom residencies led by professional artists across various artistic and expressive disciplines. We spoke with VAIS program manager Johnson Blomgren about the impact of the VAIS program, her advice for teachers who want to implement the arts in their lessons, and the importance of community arts programming for everyone.

Embracing Your Voice: A Conversation with 2024 Poetry Out Loud National Champion Niveah Glover

Under a flutter of confetti with the opening beat of The Black Eyed Peas’ “I Gotta Feeling” swelling around her, Niveah Glover was named our 2024 Poetry Out Loud National Champion on May 2nd, the first from Florida to win the Finals competition in the program’s 19-year history. A few days after winning the National Finals, we sat down with Glover via video conference to talk about her reaction to the big night, writing her own poetry (did we mention she was also runner-up in this year’s Poetry Ourselves written competition?), and what advice she has for future Poetry Out Loud participants.

Podcast: Shanna Lin, Director of the Paterson Music Project (PMP)

Shanna Lin, teaching artist and director of the Paterson Music Project (PMP), gives us the program's history: it’s an El Sistema-inspired program established in 2013 with 32 second-graders that now serves more than 500 students from 25 schools in Paterson, New Jersey. PMP offers after-school programs four days a week and on Saturdays, including string orchestra, concert band, guitar, jazz, hand drumming, keyboard, and choir, and provides instruments to students at no cost. We discuss the principles of El Sistema, which started in Venezuela about 50 years ago as a social impact program and uses music education to teach discipline, teamwork, and community building.

Our Town Grant Spotlight: Ancient Art in New Contexts

Musician Devesh Chandra began learning to play the tabla — Indian hand drums — at age three, learning the sounds of Northern Indian classical music from his mother, renowned sitarist Veena Chandra. Today, Devesh and Veena are both working musicians and educators, serving as artist associates at Williams College in Massachusetts, collaborating with musicians of all genres, and performing across the United States and abroad. Recently, they have brought their talents to smaller, less traditional venues in New York state: Schenectady School District classrooms. The Chandras have been visiting elementary, middle, and high schools in the district for the past year to share their music with students, many of whom have cultural ties to Indian music and art.

Grant Spotlight: The Possibility Project

Established in 2001 by Founder and President Paul G. Griffin and a dedicated network of New York City youth, parents, educators, artists, and community organizers, The Possibility Project emerged in response to the diminishing opportunities for youth to engage in artistic expression, bridge cultural divides, and make their voices heard. Currently, The Possibility Project offers in-person and virtual programs that serve over 100 New York City youth. Christina Calfo, director of development at The Possibility Project, spoke with us about the Foster Care Performing Arts Program’s upcoming musical theater production and the role of the arts in empowering and positively transforming youth to creatively and impactfully tell their stories.

Podcast: Emmett Phillips, Poet, Hip-Hop Artist, Actor, and Teaching Artist

Emmett Phillips is a hip-hop artist, actor, poet, and teaching artist based in Des Moines, Iowa. In this podcast, Phillips shares his journey from his early days in hip-hop through his time in the military to becoming a teaching artist who empowers youth through the arts, specifically hip-hop. He discusses hip-hop as a cultural movement that uplifts people, amplifies the voices of the oppressed, and expresses ideas and values with creativity and style. He also talks about his personal growth through hip-hop and how it inspired him to become a teaching artist, helping students find their voices and build confidence.

Back to School Grant Spotlight: In Progress

Filmmaker and teaching artist Kristine Sorensen has collaborated with the Bug O Nay Ge Shig School on the Leech Lake Reservation for decades. This year, she will be teaching children whose parents worked with her when they were students. Sorensen is one of the founders and current executive director of In Progress, a digital media nonprofit that conducts programming across Minnesota, with studios in Saint Paul and Crookston, a small town in the northwestern part of the state. At the Bug O Nay Ge Shig School, In Progress facilitates Living Histories, a digital arts and storytelling project that integrates digital arts platforms and tools into classroom curriculums.