Federal budget proposals cut VSA program funding

Help us stop this from happening!

VSA, the international organization on arts and disability, has received funding for programs through the federal Department of Education for 25 years. VSA increases access to the arts for people with disabilities and provides students, educators, parents, and artists with the resources and tools to support inclusive arts-integrated programming in schools and communities throughout the United States.

Current budget proposals have eliminated program funding for VSA, along with all other arts education. The federal funding for VSA provides VSA Florida with money for programming throughout our state. We can’t let them remove the VSA line item.

VSA is the sole provider of federally supported programs for arts in education for students with disabilities. Through VSA’s national initiatives, students are afforded valuable academic advantages that contribute to classroom success. Their teachers benefit from innovative strategies to ensure student participation and progress that use arts to enhance learning and to cultivate inclusive environments that benefit students of all abilities in grades K–12. These educational programs directly reach more than 466,000 children nationwide—one-third of whom were students with disabilities.

We can’t allow this to happen. Help VSA Florida get this message to Congress. There is little time, so please help us by doing something today!

You can:
Write to Senator Bill Nelson by clicking here or call (202)-224-5275.
Write to Senator Marco Rubio by clicking here or call (202) 224-3041.

And tell them:
1) Direct funding for education programs are not earmarks attached randomly to irrelevant bills; they are budget line items within the Department of Education.
2) Don’t take away the VSA line item. Keep funding for inclusive arts programming so that schools can engage students with innovative strategies.
3) Why this matters to you. Describe your good experience with VSA Florida.