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NYC Arts in Education Roundtable

Testimony Letter to NY State Legislators on FY26 State Budget

Re: Support for Arts Education in New York State FY 2026 Budget

Dear NY State Legislators,

There is a critical need for support for arts education in NY State in the FY 2026 budget. Arts education and exposure to New York’s cultural riches are an essential component of every child’s education. New York must prioritize universal access to high-quality, culturally-responsive, and sequential arts education for ALL students with dedicated, adequate, and equitable funding. We call on New York State to make arts a core academic subject, fund NYSCA at $200M, restore staffing for arts education at the NYS Education Department, conduct a statewide Arts Education Gap Study, and fully fund an equitable Foundation Aid Formula that meets all students’ needs. 

Although the Federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) outlines that the arts are a critical component of a child’s education, New York is one of only 18 states that does not consider arts a core curriculum subject. Across the northeastern part of the country, 7 out of 10 states have already codified arts as a core subject — New York is now falling behind our regional partners in an area we once led. 

In New York City, arts education is woefully underfunded, inconsistent, and inequitable. According to the city’s Annual Arts in Schools Report, just 31% of eighth-grade students meet the New York State Education Department’s requirements and guidelines for arts education, which recommends students have access to at least two different arts disciplines. That number has remained largely unchanged since 2015, while the number of certified arts teachers citywide has declined over time. 

A recent Arts Education Report from NYC Public Schools to the NY City Council revealed that 379 NYC public schools lack a certified arts teacher (24% of schools) — leaving thousands of students without a dedicated arts teacher in their school. In 2014, NYC released its State of the Arts report, providing a first-ever school-by-school breakdown and analysis of the state of arts education in NYC public schools. In that report, we learned 306 schools did not have a certified arts teacher. 10+ years later the number of schools without arts teachers has not improved. Our young people deserve better. 

Back in 2014, that lack of access fell disproportionately on the City’s lower income neighborhoods, especially the South Bronx and Central Brooklyn. Unfortunately, we don’t know which schools are most impacted now (both in NYC and across the state) unless a more formal study is conducted.

Dance, music, theater, visual arts, and media arts provide evidence-based solutions for engaging the whole child. Arts education nurtures social-emotional wellness, prepares students to enter the workforce, improves academic outcomes in the classroom, and increases parent involvement. With only one associate in the arts at the state education department to serve 2.5M students in 732 school districts (compared to 5-6 associates pre-2008 recession), arts deserts abound in urban and rural school districts. We are failing to grow our own talent for NY’s creative industries — especially at a time when historic investments are being made in New York’s film and media industries. Instead 47% of NYC schools reported that funding for the arts is generally insufficient. Investment and support for arts education means building a pathway for employment in the creative workforce needed to fill those union jobs.

We ask that the legislature…

  • Support legislation (formerly Senate Bill S285 and Assembly Bill A1502) which would add arts and music education into the public-school curriculum outlined in NYS education law. Given the lack of compliance with current arts education teaching requirements, this sets a baseline for greater equity and opportunity across the state. It also ensures that more students have exposure to arts education as a means of bolstering the workforce development pipeline in addition to building foundational life skills needed across career paths.
  • Restore arts staffing at NYSED Arts Education is grossly understaffed at NYSED. We support the Regents request to restore at least one of the eliminated arts associate positions in the office of Curriculum and Instruction.
  • Improve data transparency by allocating $300,000 to study gaps in arts education, echoing the Board of Regents call to benchmark and analyze arts education access statewide.
  • Restoration full funding ($2M) for New York Summer School of the Arts — while the New York Summer School of the Arts suffered a pandemic cut, we support the Regents’ request for $2 million to restore these unique programs, while sustaining access to local, regional summer arts programs.

The NYC Arts in Education Roundtable is also proud to stand with the Coalition for Equitable Education Funding and the collective call for an Equitable Foundation Aid Formula that Meets Students’ Needs. We applaud Governor Hochul and the NYS Legislature for fully funding the Foundation Aid formula in 2023 for the first time. Recognizing the intrinsic impact on arts education, we call on the State to again fully fund Foundation Aid and to make the following additional changes to the Foundation Aid formula to help ensure schools can meet the needs of all students:

  • Replace the outdated “successful school district model” that has formed the base of the formula. This model is based on the narrow view that successful school districts are those where students perform well on standardized tests, with insufficient consideration to the needs of large urban districts. The State must ensure the new base rate reflects the actual cost of providing the academic, social-emotional, and holistic supports students need to succeed in school, including in large urban districts, with particular attention to students from low-income backgrounds, students with disabilities, English Language Learners, students who are homeless, and students in the foster system. 
  • Add a per-pupil weight for students in temporary housing and students in the foster system. More than 146,000 New York City students—roughly one in every eight—experienced homelessness in 2023–24 (the most recent year for which data are available), and around 5,000 students spent time in the foster system. At present, the Foundation Aid formula does not provide any additional funding to help schools support these student populations, both of whom face tremendous obstacles to success in school and have educational needs distinct from those of all students in poverty. 
  • Increase the weights for students with disabilities and ELLs to ensure they reflect the cost of providing legally required, high-quality classes, services, and supports and are adequate to address the wide spectrum of student needs. This includes considering differentiated weights by program to better account for the tremendous diversity within both groups of students, neither of which is a monolith.  
  • Update the Regional Cost Index to better reflect the rising costs of salaries and services. This metric has been fixed since 2006 and is thus significantly out of date, particularly given increased expenses in New York City.  
  • Provide resources to implement the State’s new class size requirements. The New York City Independent Budget Office (IBO) has estimated that NYCPS will need between $1.6 and $1.9 billion annually to achieve full compliance with the law by the 2028 deadline, given the significant hiring needs associated with reducing class size—yet the State has allocated no additional funding to help NYCPS meet this legislative mandate, which applies to New York City alone. 
  • Include funding for students in 3-K and Pre-K, as well as students with disabilities through the school year they turn 22. Over the past decade, New York City has dramatically expanded access to early childhood education. The Foundation Aid formula, however, only covers grades K–12, a holdover from an earlier era in which a child’s educational career was typically thought to begin at age five or six. Numerous studies have demonstrated the long-term benefits of high-quality preschool, and the Foundation Aid formula should be updated to reflect the needs of a unified P–12 system. In addition, the State recently affirmed that districts have a legal obligation to provide special education programs and services to students with disabilities until they turn 22 if they have not yet graduated, but the Foundation Aid formula does not provide funding for these students.

Success in school and in life starts with the arts. In order to improve literacy, support workforce development, provide social-emotional support, and improve long-term academic results, arts education must be a central focus and investment in the FY 2026 State Budget. With your support and advocacy, arts education will be in every school to re-ignite students’ learning and provide a pathway to a bright future for all. Thank you for your attention and consideration.

Sincerely,

Kimberly Olsen
Executive Director, NYC Arts in Education Roundtable

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