The National Endowment for Arts is completely committed towards providing leadership in the field of arts. Arts are an imperative ingredient in education. Every child can benefit from getting education in arts, whether they have artistic talent or not. The opportunities include creating, performing and communicating through different artistic media.
Today, the entire focus of Art Endowment is to identify and support model projects & programs that offer skills, understanding and in-depth knowledge of Arts to the youths in communities and schools. Surveys and researches strongly suggest that youth, who participate in arts, can acquire the skill that may help them in problem solving, decision making and creative thinking.
It also lets them understand the importance of teamwork in any field. Again, studies have revealed that arts programs can motivate a child to learn and improve his/her performance in core academic subjects. There are cases where arts provide children with an impetus for staying in school till graduation, whereas others get the inspiration for pursuing college education. Through arts education grants, federal and private agencies are making sure that arts education programs continue to play a pivotal role in the overall education system of the nation.
Arts Education Grants
With multiple deadlines available, organizations can submit application in any one of the Arts education grants categories. For many organizations, these arts education grant categories represent an entire range in funding options for the whole year. Applicants require examining the purposes and goals of their project. Again, they should also need review these 3 categories and apply for the one that is the most relevant, as Arts Endowment does not allow a transfer of application in between categories.
Organizations have the option of applying through one of these categories:
Learning in the Arts for Children & Youth
This arts education grant is offered for improving the arts education and provide better opportunities to children and youth in both community-based & school-based settings. With the application deadline on June 11, 2009 for FY 2010, this category supports curriculum-based and in-depth arts education experiences, which occur over a considerable period. The applying projects should provide participatory learning. Again, it should also engage students, who are excellent in art of various forms.
Projects, applying for the category, should include these components:
• Opportunity to students and teachers for experiencing exemplary artworks, live wherever possible
• Acquisition of skills to practice art form wherever possible
• Performance within the discipline studied
• Student learning assessment, according to the arts education standards followed at national and state level
Access to Artistic Excellence
This arts education grant is meant for supporting artistic excellence, preserving our cultural heritage and providing access to arts for every American. With the deadline of this arts education grant on March 12 & August 13 2009 for FY 2010, the category supports project offering short-term arts appreciation or arts exposure for children, youth and inter generational education project.
Challenge America
This arts education grant, with an overall funding of $10,000, is offered to small & mid-sized organization. With the current deadline for the application being May 28, 2009 (FY 2010), the grant supports project that extends the reach of arts education to underserved population. This grant is not available to curriculum-based instruction in arts.
Using arts education grants, government and federal agencies want arts education to improve the degrading rates of high school graduation, developing pre-kindergarten programs and countering the gap in achievement of urban communities.
