The importance of arts education has long been recognized. Years ago, John Dewey (1934, vii) argued that, in arts education, "learning is controlled by two great principles: one that participation is something inherently worth while, or undertaken on its own account; the other is perception of the relation of means to consequences... A third consideration [focuses on] skill and technique." Today, the arts are taught in schools as disciplines providing unique cores of understandings, and fostered as curricular enhancements for learning through other school subjects. The skills and techniques that Dewey considered integral to the arts offer to engaged learners alternative languages and innovative strategies. The arts are among core academic subjects under the No Child Left Behind initiative, which provides assistance for arts education as an integral part of elementary and secondary school curricula. The legislation also includes provisions for increasing student competency in the arts. Appropriately, the arts under this initiative, are expected to contribute to student learning in general--through artistic experience and specific content taught by field specialists in distinct disciplines, and also as contributory artistic strategies posed by teachers in other core subject areas. Though the "No Child" legislation's emphasis on high-stakes testing in reading and math could work counter to arts education in schools, it can work positively if teachers in other subject areas recognize the value of artistic understandings and seek to incorporate the arts into classroom learning plans. Within the design of education, the arts communicate ideas, captivate the imagination, contextualize information, provide open frames for viewing the world, and widen perspectives.