The New York Times recently profiled the rigorous four-year academic and arts program, The Center for Visual and Performing Arts, at Suitland High School in District Heights, MD. The program has survived budget cuts, neighborhood violence, a constant shortage of art supplies, and dwindling enrollment to be a crucible for emerging artists, many of them African-Americans, and some now rising to national prominence.  Americans for the Arts Arts Education Program Manager, Jeff Poulin, is quoted in upholding Suitland as "an exemplar program for what we seek to see in schools all over the country."