The US House Appropriations Committee, chaired by Republican Tom Cole of Oklahoma, advanced a budget proposal that could cut funding from the Department of Education’s only arts grant.
Erin Harkey, CEO of the advocacy nonprofit Americans for the Arts, told Hyperallergic that eliminating the department’s Assistance for Arts Education program “would reduce support for critical work that students, educators, and communities depend on, including teacher professional development, accessible arts education programming, community partnerships, and arts education outreach.”
The Assistance for Arts Education program was established in 2015 in part to support initiatives related to “disadvantaged students” and children with disabilities. “The program has awarded millions in grants to institutions providing arts education to organizations serving families living below local poverty lines,” according to Hyperallergic. “Americans for the Arts’s ideal funding for the grant program is $40 million.”
But a report issued by the House Appropriations Committee says that funding “should be focused on core education such as reading, writing, and math.”
Hyperallergic noted that the program received $36.5 million from Congress’s final budget despite similar funding threats last year. “However, the following award cycle requested applications for programs that promoted ‘patriotic education,’ such as a Cleveland Play House initiative that received $830,000 to ‘enhance patriotic education through arts integration.’”
The fate of funding for the program now depends on budget proposals to be issued by the Senate, after which point the Senate and the House will draft a single budget bill.
