On July 16, 2015, the U.S. Senate passed its bipartisan Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) reauthorization proposal, the Every Child Achieves Act (S.1177), by a margin of 81 to 17. Under this legislation, the “arts” are recognized as a core academic subject and would receive their rightful place in the main instructional day.

The Americans for the Arts, along with more than a dozen national arts education organizations were approved by the Senate education committee to define the “arts” to include dance, media arts, music, theatre, and visual arts. These art disciplines are now eligible due to their inclusion in the National Core Arts Standards.  As the over 4 to 1 Senate vote indicates, there is significant bipartisan support for dance and the arts.

This is a giant leap forward for the field, as the Senate has not considered K-12 education legislation since the passage of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act in 2001.

There is a similar bill, H.R. 5, that has passed the House of Representatives.  Because they are two separate bills for the Senate and House respectively, the two bills must go to a Conference Committee where the differences between the two bills are worked out.  S. 1177 is the better of the two bills and should be used to strengthen the House bill in the Conference Committee.

When the provisions of S. 1177 become law it will have far-reaching, unprecedented implications for the dance field and fuel the work of the National Dance Education Organization (NDEO) immensely. If dance is cemented as a core academic subject, dance teachers and programs will be eligible for federal education funding, such as Title I, teacher training, and school improvement grants. This support would include funding for after-school programs and extended learning.

Dance and the rest of the arts should be a bipartisan issue.  According to NDEO’s Evidence: A Report on the Impact of Dance in the K-12 Setting (2013), dance education improves academic skills, offers neurological benefits, improves student attendance, upholds higher order thinking skills, promotes conflict resolution, enhances emotional well-being, and supports learning of underserved populations, including kinesthetic learners, special education students, and low-income learners. These benefits are hallmarks of 21^st century education that people of all persuasions can agree on.

Please join the National Dance Education Organization and other arts entities to support the final passage of this bill. The time for action is now. It’s time to advocate for dance education on the national level. There will be more important work to do in the coming months as the final bill is worked out in Conference Committee.