                          TITLE 2--THE CONGRESS
 
                 CHAPTER 19--CONGRESSIONAL AWARD PROGRAM
 
    SUBCHAPTER II--CONGRESSIONAL RECOGNITION FOR EXCELLENCE IN ARTS 
                                EDUCATION
 
Sec. 811. Findings

    Congress makes the following findings:
        (1) Arts literacy is a fundamental purpose of schooling for all 
    students.
        (2) Arts education stimulates, develops, and refines many 
    cognitive and creative skills, critical thinking and nimbleness in 
    judgment, creativity and imagination, cooperative decisionmaking, 
    leadership, high-level literacy and communication, and the capacity 
    for problem-posing and problem-solving.
        (3) Arts education contributes significantly to the creation of 
    flexible, adaptable, and knowledgeable workers who will be needed in 
    the 21st century economy.
        (4) Arts education improves teaching and learning.
        (5) Where parents and families, artists, arts organizations, 
    businesses, local civic and cultural leaders, and institutions are 
    actively engaged in instructional programs, arts education is more 
    successful.
        (6) Effective teachers of the arts should be encouraged to 
    continue to learn and grow in mastery of their art form as well as 
    in their teaching competence.
        (7) The 1999 study, entitled ``Gaining the Arts Advantage: 
    Lessons from School Districts that Value Arts Education'', found 
    that the literacy, education, programs, learning and growth 
    described in paragraphs (1) through (6) contribute to successful 
    districtwide arts education.
        (8) Despite all of the literacy, education, programs, learning 
    and growth findings described in paragraphs (1) through (6), the 
    1997 National Assessment of Educational Progress reported that 
    students lack sufficient opportunity for participatory learning in 
    the arts.
        (9) The Arts Education Partnership, a coalition of national and 
    State education, arts, business, and civic groups, is an excellent 
    example of one organization that has demonstrated its effectiveness 
    in addressing the purposes described in section 814(a) of this title 
    and the capacity and credibility to administer arts education 
    programs of national significance.

(Pub. L. 96-114, title II, Sec. 202, as added Pub. L. 106-533, 
Sec. 1(a), Nov. 22, 2000, 114 Stat. 2545.)

                  Section Referred to in Other Sections

    This section is referred to in section 814 of this title.
