disseminate data on alumni, and will help institutions to better understand how students use arts training in their careers and other aspects of their lives. The NEA Education Leaders Institute (ELI) convenes key decision makers to enhance the quality and quantity of arts education at the state level. Each institute gathers teams of school leaders, legislators, policymakers, educators, professional artists, consultants, and scholars from up to five states to discuss a shared arts education challenge and engage in strategic planning to advance arts education in their respective states. There are a variety of other National organizations promoting arts education in the United States. These include Americans for the Arts which features major projects such as The Arts. Ask For More. national arts education public awareness campaign, Association for the Advancement of Arts Education, College Art Association; and National Art Education Association. Arts integration Arts integration is another and/or alternative way for the arts to be taught within schools. Arts integration is the combining of the visual and/or performing arts and incorporating them into the everyday curriculum within classrooms. Learning in a variety of ways allows for students to use their eight multiple intelligences as described by theorist Howard Gardner in his Frames of Mind: Theory of Multiple Intelligences. The eight multiple intelligences include bodily-kinesthetic, intrapersonal, interpersonal, linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, naturalist, and spatial. Arts integration is especially important today when some schools no longer have or have small arts education programs due to significant budget cuts, including the federal budget agreement that took $12.5 million from the NEA, the United States' largest public arts funder, in 2011. Arts integration in common core subjects creates positive academic and social effects on students. Integrating the arts into the classroom is a great way to engage students who are otherwise uninterested in common core curriculum. Additionally, disadvantaged and at-risk students are exceptionally highly impacted by arts integration. The integration of the arts helps these students in the classroom by improving their ability to practice effective communication, give them a better attitude towards school, lowering their frequency of inappropriate behavior in class, and increase their overall academic abilities. See also Art education Art schools Arts in education Arts integration Arts-based environmental education Performing arts education Visual arts education Visual arts of the United States References Further reading (bibliography) External links Library guides Education in the United States by subject Education Visual arts education Arts schools