This paper is intended to support art education advocates and policymakers as they formulate strategies for broadening the base of school offered visual art experiences through discipline-based art education (DBAE). The study is divided into three sections. The first section of the paper concerns assumptions, ideas, and perspectives underlying the analysis in the study. The purpose of the second section is to put arts education, DBAE in particular, in context. The second section has three sub-parts: historical background and general commentary; five prominent features of the educational policy landscape; and arts education and DBAE vis-a-vis the five features. The third section consists of five advocacy recommendations. Advocates are urged: (1) to bring in to focus, highlight, and take advantage of the potential of DBAE arts education to foster students' reasoning and problem solving abilities; (2) to assume a more aggressive posture with regard to arts education serving students of marked need; (3) to advance DBAE arts education as supportive of attempts to professionalize teaching; (4) to legitimate the arts by advancing efforts to assess student performance and by accounting for progress in expanding the role of the arts; and (5) to cause exemplary arts education materials to be developed, taking advantage of state-of-the art technologies. Contains 17 references. (MM)