KRS 158.7991: Legislative findings and declarations.

(1) (a) The General Assembly finds and declares that the integration of the arts and

foreign languages into the school curriculum benefits students by increasing

their motivation to learn; improves attendance; fosters multicultural

understanding; and develops neur ological cognitive potential through higher -

order thinking skills, creativity, and problem solving. Further, the General

Assembly finds and declares that arts and foreign language education can

renew and invigorate faculty and can foster greater parent and community

participation and support.

(b) The General Assembly notes that it created a system of public education that

allows and assists all students to acquire certain capacities provided under

KRS 158.645, including communication skills necessary to fun ction in a

complex and changing civilization and sufficient grounding in the arts to

enable each student to appreciate his or her cultural and historical heritage.

(c) The General Assembly further notes that its goals for public schools under

KRS 158.6451 include: to develop students' abilities to use basic

communication and mathematics skills for purposes and situations they will

encounter throughout their lives; to apply core concepts and principles from

mathematics, the sciences, the arts, the humanities , and social studies; and to

connect and integrate experiences and new knowledge from all subject matter

fields with what they have previously learned and build on past learning

experiences to acquire new information through various sources.

(2) It is the intent of the General Assembly in enacting KRS 158.7992 to address the

findings and declarations set out in subsection (1) of this section.