“Orchestras across the U.S. were thrilled when their advocacy efforts paid off as a new education law—called the Every Student Succeeds Act—received bi-partisan support from the House and Senate and was signed into law on December 10, 2015 by President Obama,” writes League of American Orchestras President and CEO Jesse Rosen in Wednesday’s (1/20) Huffington Post. “The new Every Student Succeeds Act firmly establishes that every child deserves access to a ‘well-rounded education,’ including music and the arts…. The new law declares that a wide array of federal education dollars … may be used by states and local school systems to provide increased access to the full array of subjects in a well-rounded education. This is good news … but the battle is not over…. Now, many more decisions for how to use federal education dollars are left in the hands of state and local education policy leaders…. The highest poverty schools in this country have the least access to arts education….. To realize the potential of the new federal law, arts organizations must join with parents, teachers, and community members in all sectors to ask school systems for greater transparency about student access to all parts of a well-rounded education.”
Posted January 21, 2016
Pictured: Student musicians at the Richmond Symphony Orchestra’s 2014 Come & Play concert in November 2014.
