There is a growing consensus among policy makers and parents that the arts should be an integral part of education.
The arts are serious and rigorous academic subjects, essential to human knowledge.
Students of the arts outperform their peers on the SAT and other tests.
The arts enhance reading, writing, vocabulary, and math skills.
The arts make kids more creative, original, imaginative, interactive, literate, analytical, articulate, and persistent.
The arts help high-risk students stay out of trouble and go on to college
The arts give students with disabilities methods of expression sometimes not possible by any other means.
The arts improve students' understanding of themselves, their peers, and people of other cultures, showing kids that art is the universal language.
The arts teach students to embrace diversity and accept ambiguity.
The arts teach kids to collaborate, cooperate, and choose alternative courses of action.
The arts help students think and work across traditional disciplines.
The arts teach kids to insist on content and quality.
The arts contribute to technological competence.
The arts improve communication skills and other qualities necessary in the job market.
The arts give kids an outlet for creative expression and unlimited possibilities for personal, academic, and professional success.

When Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee chaired the Education Commission of the States, his 2006 chairman's initiative was arts education. Read the report from the Governor's Commission on the Arts in Education Findings and Recommendations, released in July 2006.
(Give it a minute to open, it's a large file.)

- "Eloquent Evidence: Arts at the Core of Learning,"
Kennedy Center ArtsEdge
- "Facts about Arts Education," Arts for a Complete Education
- "Value of the Arts to People with Disabilities," VSA arts
- Absolutely Arts
- Impact of Arts Education on Workforce Preparation
- National Arts Education Awareness