Michael Kaiser advocates for a Federal Arts Policy:

For example, grants for arts education are given by several agencies yet there is no effort to coordinate the educational programming of the arts organizations receiving federal funds. This cannot yield the most effective or efficient results.

There is also no organized process for sharing what has been learned so that every arts organization must learn from its own mistakes. As a result, the federal government has been funding arts education in our public schools for decades and we still have not implemented a coherent approach to using the arts to benefit our children.

The problem is not that federal funding for the arts is unwarranted; the problem is that we need to be assured, as citizens, that we are getting the most value for our money. What is needed is a coordinated approach to arts grants to ensure that the arts programming supported by federal funds truly serves our national interest.