Bill requires schools to teach arts to all students.
S. 5635 — Arts Education for All Act · Filed by Ben Luján (D-NM) · 1 cosponsor · Introduced Sep 30, 2026 · Referred to committee
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What it does
The bill tells states and school districts to add arts classes. Schools must train arts teachers and track course enrollment. Schools must work with arts groups on after-school programs. The federal government will study whether arts education helps students. The bill brings back arts testing in a national student test that stopped in 2021.
Who it affects
All students in schools will be affected. The bill focuses on low-income students, students with disabilities, English learners, and students of color.
One thing to notice
Schools must report arts course data by neighborhood wealth. Schools may need to spend money and time to add arts classes.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
1 cosponsor: 1 Democrats.
- Sep 30, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Sep 30, 2026 — Referred to Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Words to know
- arts classes — Classes in music, dance, theater, visual arts, and other creative subjects.
- arts education — Teaching and learning through creative and artistic subjects in school.
- after-school programs — Classes and activities that happen at school after regular classes end.
- national student test — A big test that measures what students know across the United States.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (10,128 characters) on Oct 9, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
As of — page rendered 2026-10-20.
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