Starting on page 24 of this issue you’ll find one of the more lengthy and comprehensive articles we’ve ever featured. Editor Trevor Kupfer tackled an increasingly important and often-overlooked topic that’s secretly at the core of many issues surrounding our schools and the future of our children: arts and creativity in education.

Over the past several months, Trevor talked to dozens of teachers, parents, administrators, politicians, and students to get a glimpse into what’s happening in K-12 arts education today. And if we’re not careful, we could be in trouble.

With a picture of the future that changes almost everyday, it’s more important than ever to educate our youth to think creatively and express new ideas. Unfortunately, limited budgets are forcing cuts to what some think are “non-essential” areas of education. So in a time when there’s more demand for creative thinkers than ever, we should be ramping up arts-based education – but instead, we’re scaling it back.

Preparing youth for the creative economy is crucial not only for their own development, but for our society as a whole. Today, building only traditional silos of math, science, and English with curriculum designed for the society of the last half-century seems laughable. Our students must not only inhabit the world we know now, but help invent the one we’ve yet to see. And for that they need the right educational mix – and that means a healthy dose of the arts.