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No Educator Left Behind: Arts

No Educator Left Behind is a series providing answers from the U.S. Department of Education to questions about the federal No Child Left Behind Act and how it will affect educators. If you have a question about No Child Left Behind, send an e-mail to Ellen Delisio, and we will submit your question to the Department of Education.

QUESTION:

Does NCLB force schools to stop teaching art and music?

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION:

No, it does not. In fact, under the No Child Left Behind Act, "core academic subjects" are defined to include not just reading / language arts and math but also science, history, geography, civics, economics, foreign languages, and the arts. States now have unprecedented flexibility to use federal grant funds to support the arts and other core subjects. Additionally, the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Innovation and Improvement (OII) sponsors programs to integrate the arts into elementary and middle school curricula and to bring arts education to children with disadvantages or disabilities.

Finally, under the law, parents with children in underperforming schools now have the ability to transfer them to a public charter or magnet school of their choice. Children deserve a well-rounded education, and they'll get it under the No Child Left Behind Act.

Read previous questions and answers in our No Educator Left Behind archive.