What the research and experts say...

Recent studies demonstrate how involvement with the arts provides unparalleled opportunity for learning, enabling young people to reach for and attain higher levels of achievement. Additionally it provides evidences of why the arts should be more widely recognized for current and potential improvement of American education.

SOURCE: Champions of Change: The Impact of Arts on Learning, (1999). Arts Education Partnership & President's Committee on Arts & Humanities. http://aep-arts.org

Arts integration's effects are significant for all kinds of students ... students become better thinkers, develop higher order skills, and deepen their engagement and their inclination to learn. Integrated arts represents a serious strategy for (school) improvement and change. It works because it keeps the focus of change on learning, which is where it belongs.

SOURCE: Rabkin, N. (2004). Putting the Arts in the Picture: Reframing Education in the 21st Century.

[The] business of schools is to design, create, and invent high-quality, intellectually demanding work for our students: schoolwork that calls on students to think, reason, and to use their minds well. It is the obligation of the school and the teacher to invent work that attracts the attention and compels the energy of students.

SOURCE: Schlechty, P. (1997). Inventing Better Schools: An Action Plan for Educational Reform.

Education in the arts is essential if our young people are going to succeed and contribute to what Federal Reserve Chairman Greenspan refers to as our "economy of ideas," as economy fueled by imaginative, flexible, and tough-minded thinking. The arts uniquely nurture that ability.

SOURCE: Richard Riley, Former U.S. Secretary of Education in Champions of Change: the Impact of Arts on Learning, (1999).

Students in "arts rich" schools scored higher in creativity-imagination, expression, cooperative learning, risk-taking, and measures of academic self-concept than students in "arts poor" schools. Teachers and principals in schools with strong arts programs reported that the presence of the arts led teachers to be more innovative, to have increased awareness of students' abilities, and to enjoy work more.

SOURCE: Burton, J. M., Horowitz, R., & Abeles, H. (2000). "Learning In and Through the Arts: The Question of Transfer." Studies in Arts Education, 41 (no. 3).

When artistically talented, academically at-risk students were involved in three years of arts training, learned in arts-integrated classrooms, and participated in an additional program that used the arts to support academic classes, they made greater gains in reading than did a control group.

SOURCE: Baum, S. M., & Owen, S. V. Using Art Processes to Enhance Academic Self-Regulation (paper presented at ArtsConnection National Symposium on Learning and the Arts: New Strategies for Promoting Student Success, New York, February 22, 1997) in Critical Links: Learning in the Arts and Student Academic and Social Development. http://aep-arts.org

Eighth and tenth grade students who were highly involved in the arts performed better on a variety of academic measures than students who were minimally involved in the arts. High arts students earned better grades, performed better on standardized tests, performed more community service, reported less boredom in school, had a more positive self-concept, and were less likely to drop out of school. This association was true for students from both high and low SES (socio-economic status) groups.

SOURCE: Catterall, J. S. (1997). "Involvement in the Arts and Success in Secondary School." Americans for the Arts Monographs, 1 (no. 9).

The term "core academic subjects" means English, reading or language arts, mathematics, science, foreign languages, civics and government, economics, arts, history, and geography.

SOURCE: No Child Left Behind Act of 2002, Title IX, Part A, Sec. 9101 (11).

Students who participated in arts programs in selected elementary and middle schools in New York City showed significant increases in self-esteem and thinking skills.

SOURCE: National Arts Education Research Center, New York University, 1990.

An Auburn University researcher found significant increases in overall self-concept of at-risk children participating in an arts program that included music, movement, dramatics and art.

SOURCE: Barry, N. H. (1992). Project ARISE: Meeting the Needs of Disadvantaged Students Through the Arts. Auburn, LA: Auburn University.

The nation's top business executives agree that arts education programs can help repair weaknesses in American education and better prepare workers for the 21st century.

SOURCE: "The Changing Workplace is Changing Our View of Education." Business Week, October 1996.

Many studies of music in the school curriculum focus on potential improvements in scholastic subjects, neglecting other important aspects of personal and social development. Roberta Konrad of UCLA found both types of benefits in the same classroom setting. Seventh and eighth grade students in Los Angeles were involved in a social studies curriculum involving music and other arts. Compared to control classes with standard curricula, the researcher found higher achievement grades in history, and significant increases in positive social behaviors (including helping and sharing, increases in empathy for others, and beneficial attitudes including reduced prejudice and racism). Teachers also found that students were less aggressive, suggesting that integrating music into 7th and 8th grade social studies may enhance subject performance and social behaviors and attitudes.

SOURCE: Konrad, R. R. (2000). Empathy, Art and the Social Studies: The Effect of an Empathy Based, Arts Enriched United States History Curriculum on Middle School Students. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.

The College Board identifies the arts as one of the six basic academic subject areas students should study in order to succeed in college.

SOURCE: Academic Preparation for College: What Students Need to Know and Be Able to Do. (1983). New York: The College Board.

Students of the arts continue to outperform their non-arts peers on the SAT, according to reports by the College Entrance Examination Board. In 2005, SAT takers with coursework/experience in music performance scored 56 points higher on the verbal portion of the test and 39 points higher on the math portion than students with no coursework/experience in the arts. Scores for those with coursework in music appreciation were 60 points higher on the verbal and 39 points higher on the math portion. Students studying acting/play production scored 65 points higher on the verbal portion and 34 points higher on the math portion. Scores for those with coursework in drama appreciation were 52 points higher on the verbal and 22 points higher on the math portion. Students studying dance scored 25 points higher on the verbal portion. Scores for students of art appreciation were 40 points higher on the verbal and 21 points higher on math while studio art students scored 49 points higher on verbal and 33 points higher on math. (For scores from 2001-2005, see http://www.menc.org/information/advocate/sat.html).

SOURCE: Profile of College-Bound Seniors National Report for 2001, 2002, 2004, and 2005. Princeton, NJ: The College Board.

Based on 2005 SAT scores, students studying the arts for 4 or more years scored 65 points higher on the verbal portion and 43 points higher on the math portion of the test.

SOURCE: Profile of College-Bound Seniors National Report for 2005. Princeton, NJ: The College Board.

What one city is doing to help children win big! "Since 1998, all but a few of the city's 157 public elementary schools have been working with museums, theaters and other arts groups for the express purpose of boosting students' academic achievement. In that time the nation's 12th largest school district has built a stronger teaching force, engaged students through new ways of learning and brought marked improvement in literacy, particularly writing." See the details for student achievement measures of success in Dallas Texas!

SOURCE: Reardon, C. (Winter 2005) "Deep in the Arts of Texas" in Ford Foundation Report.