Advocacy: NAEA and Advocacy

Arts education advocacy has always been a part of NAEA’s work, providing a voice for visual arts education at the national level and addressing the need to support educators at the state and local levels. As stated in NAEA’s Strategic Vision, under Advocacy & Policy:

It is imperative to develop art educators as leaders to look to the future, and NAEA can support them as a beacon of information and provide approaches for educators to navigate obstacles, whatever they may be.

NAEA has developed a range of advocacy resources, including position statements, a newly established Advocacy Committee, and partnerships with organizations representing the other arts disciplines. It is important to note that the advocacy work NAEA engages in is built on the foundation that many dedicated educators have established. Whether gathering signatures for petitions or working with legislators to pass bills, without this effort, there would be an even greater hill to climb in support of visual arts education.

Platform and Position Statements
NAEA platforms and supporting position statements relate to national issues or topics of interest to the visual arts education field. The platforms and statements represent the voice of the NAEA and are created to advance the mission of the organization. There are currently forty-eight approved position statements that fall under six platforms: Learners, Art Educators, Relationships, Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment. These statements are developed by content experts and undergo a rigorous review by a Position Statement Working Group, the membership at large, the Delegates Assembly, and the NAEA Board of Directors.

Position statements can be used in a variety of ways to advocate and support arts education. An educator could use the NAEA Position Statement on Certified/Licensed Visual Art Educators in Pre-K through 12 School Settings to highlight the need for properly trained and licensed educators teaching the visual arts in schools. Or they might bring the NAEA Position Statement on Scheduling, Time, Enrollment, Facilities, Funding and/or Resources for Visual Arts Education to establish guidelines for staffing with their administrator. Educators can look to these statements as expert-backed guidance to share with decision-makers.

A Standing Advocacy Committee
In response to the call for more organized efforts around arts education advocacy, at the 2024 NAEA Delegates Assembly, NAEA established a new standing committee to work more deeply on a national arts education advocacy strategy. The NAEA Advocacy Committee will support the mission and vision of NAEA by developing tools and training modules that can evolve over time to meet the needs of visual arts, design, and media arts educators. The committee is informed by the recommendations from NAEA’s Art Teacher Recruitment and Retention Task Force and will be developing a series of Advocacy Recommendations that will serve as the roadmap for all of NAEA’s advocacy efforts.

The Arts Education Alliance
Understanding that this work cannot be done in isolation, and that our peer organizations in the other art forms are ideal collaborators, NAEA has developed a partnership with the Educational Theatre Association, the National Association for Media Arts Education, the National Association for Music Education, and the National Dance Education Organization. Officially announced in May, the Arts Education Alliance brings these organizations together to amplify the value of arts education through joint advocacy work.

The group has already seen benefits from their efforts in the form of guidance to help educators access resources for their programs. In October 2024, the Federal Department of Education sent a “Dear Colleague” letter to state education agencies detailing how federal Title I, II, and IV funds can be used to support music and arts education across the country. For more details, please see this posting on NAEA’s website.

The Mission Continues
These initiatives represent just a portion of NAEA’s push to elevate arts education advocacy to the forefront of our work. Recognizing the challenges that will emerge in the coming years around funding and resources, NAEA is working to provide roadmaps and strategies for educators to continue doing what we all know is important for our learners as stated in our mission:

The National Art Education Association (NAEA) champions creative growth and innovation by equitably advancing the tools and resources for a high-quality visual arts, design, and media arts education throughout diverse populations and communities of practice.

We hope you will be a part of our efforts in this important work.