Arts For Learning NW

IT PASSED. 🎉

Portland City Council just voted yes on updates to the Arts Education and Access Tax — and Portland's kids are the winners.

Here's what just changed:
✅ The arts tax is indexed to inflation for the first time — protecting funding that had lost 25% of its purchasing power
✅ A dedicated funding category for arts education organizations is coming — the ones putting teaching and cultural artists directly in classrooms
✅ The City committed to developing a plan for teaching artist programming in schools — naming this work as a City priority for the first time ever. It's a real opening, and we intend to shape it.

This happened because our community showed up. Teaching artists wrote letters. Families made calls. People testified. You made noise for kids who couldn't make it to City Hall themselves.

At Arts for Learning NW, we are ready to deliver. 40,000 students. 120 teaching and cultural artists. The infrastructure exists — and now, so does the commitment.

Every child in Portland deserves the experience of being seen, of having their culture matter, of discovering they have something to say. Today, this city took a real step toward making that possible.

Thank you, Portland. 💛