The arts survive at the margins of education primarily as curriculum enrichments. However, evidence is emerging that shows that arts education can have powerful effects on student achievement, with the greatest gains for students in the lowest socioeconomic status quartile, those most at risk of academic failure. Arts integration is an instructional strategy that brings the arts into the core of the school day and connects the arts across the curriculum. Integrating art with content brings about the greatest gains in student achievement. In arts-integrated classrooms, work more often clearly and meaningfully connects to students' own experiences and feelings. Students create a product for an audience that matters to them, develop aesthetic standards, and experience a great sense of accomplishment. The best programs draw on the artistic resources of their communities; view student achievement and school improvement as pivotal to their mission; engage teachers, arts specialists, and artists from all disciplines in serious inquiry, reflect each school's particular strengths, and raise funds from outside the school system to support their arts-integration work.