Did You Know?
Students who were exposed to the music-based lessons scored a full 100 percent higher on fractions tests than those who learned in the conventional manner. Second-grade and third-grade students were taught fractions in an untraditional manner by teaching them basic music rhythm notation. The group was taught about the relationships between eighth, quarter, half and whole notes. Their peers received traditional fraction instruction.
Source: Neurological Research, March 15, 1999

Did You Know?
Music majors are the most likely group of college grads to be admitted to medical school. Physician and biologist Lewis Thomas studied the undergraduate majors of medical school applicants. He found that 66 percent of music majors who applied to med school were admitted, the highest percentage of any group. For comparison, (44 percent) of biochemistry majors were admitted. Also, a study of 7,500 university students revealed that music majors scored the highest reading scores among all majors including English, biology, chemistry and math.
Sources: "The Comparative Academic Abilities of Students in Education and in Other Areas of a Multi-focus University," Peter H. Wood, ERIC Document No. ED327480
"The Case for Music in the Schools," Phi Delta Kappan, February, 1994

Did You Know?
Music study can help kids understand advanced music concepts. A grasp of proportional math and fractions is a prerequisite to math at higher levels, and children who do not master these areas cannot understand more advanced math critical to high-tech fields. Music involves ratios, fractions, proportions and thinking in space and time. Second-grade students were given four months of piano keyboard training, as well as time using newly designed math software. The group scored over 27 percent higher on proportional math and fractions tests than children who used only the math software.
Source: Neurological Research March, 1999

Did You Know?
A McGill University study found that pattern recognition and mental representation scores improved significantly for students given piano instruction over a three-year period. They also found that self-esteem and musical skills measures improved for the students given piano instruction.
Source: Dr. Eugenia Costa-Giomi, "The McGill Piano Project: Effects of three years of piano instruction on children's cognitive abilities, academic achievement, and self-esteem," presented at the meeting of the Music Educators National Conference, Phoenix, AZ, April, 1998

As CEO and President of the Texas Educational Theatre Association, Inc., it is my pleasure to represent over 1300 theatre educators in the state of Texas. Theatre is at the heart of arts education.  The arts provide students of Texas with the most useful tool available in our education system today. Students who participate in the arts, both in school and after school, demonstrate improved academic performance and lower dropout rates. Effective education is based on three main ideas:  personal, cultural, and economic.  Enrichment subjects in the arts ensure we are educating the whole child and preparing productive citizens for the future. 

Theatre and fine arts classes do not just enrich the lives of students because they learn about storytelling, teamwork, creativity, innovation, and personal expression.  Theatre and the fine arts enrich every academic subject that a student studies.  They learn history when they study the time period of a play and literary structure when they determine given circumstances, climax, and denouement; they learn mathematics when they explore spatial compositions; they learn science when they discover how pigment and light react to one another while painting scenery or designing costumes.

We should be passionate about the importance of integrating theatre into not only elementary education, but also middle, secondary, and post-secondary education.  “The arts provide a dynamic that is not present in most academic subjects and make learning a richer experience,” said Sandy Garrett, Oklahoma State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Arts in the schools increase test scores and lower dropout rates. The Arts Education Partnership’s publication, Critical Links, contains 62 academic research studies that, taken together, demonstrate how arts education helps close the achievement gap, improves academic skills essential for reading and language development, and advances students’ motivation to learn.

Source:
Benefits of Theatre Education:  Improving Academic Performance and Lowering Drop Out Rates
By David Stevens, CEO/President, 2007-2009
Texas Educational Theatre Association, Inc.
Published in Texas Theatre Notes in two parts May, 2007 & October, 2007

These resources provide teachers, parents, and community members viable tools, data, and information for supporting the arts in KISD. Make sure to check-out the links to arts organizations and the suggested reading list of important advocacy texts that support the arts in the 21st century.

As then President-Elect Barack Obama stated on his campaign website:
"In addition to giving our children the science and math skills they need to compete in the new global context, we should also encourage the ability to think creatively that comes from a meaningful arts education. Unfortunately, many school disctricts are cutting instructional time for art and music education.  Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe that the arts should be a central part of effective teaching and learning."

Americans for the Arts
http://www.artsusa.org/

Here are some suggestions for learning more about the role the arts play in developing the whole child, healthy brains, and competitive workers in the global economy.


Davis, J. (2008). Why Our Schools Need the Arts. Reston, VA: National Art Education Association.

Eisner, E. (2004).  The Arts and the Creation of Mind.  New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Friedman, T. (2006). The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century.

Gardner, H. (1984). Art, Mind & Brain: A Cognitive Approach to Creativity.

Jensen, E. (2009). Arts with the Brain in Mind.

Jensen, E. (2000). Music with the Brain in Mind.

Pink, D. (2005).  A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future. New York, Riverhead Books.

Make sure to also visit these websites for more advocacy information from our fine arts professional organizations.

Visit the National Art Education Association at their website: www.arteducators.org under the "Advocacy" tab to obtain electronic copies of these documents:

Learning in a Visual Age: The Critical Importance of Visual Arts Education

Strategic Plan: Advancing Art Education 2007-2010.

Visit the Texas Music Education Association at their website: www.tmea.org under the "Resource Center" tab, click on Advocacy Materials to obtain copies of these materials:

Daniel Pink 2009 Keynote Address Video

News Media Toolkits

Advocacy Toolkits & Articles

Music Education Advocacy Quotes

Data & Study Results and Legislative Updates

ART SMART

• An arts education connects young people to themselves, their culture and civilization.  It provides the imagination to see something wholly new in the most ordinary materials and events while daring them to challenge tired modes of expression.
  
• An arts education develops collaborative and teamwork skills, technical competencies, flexible thinking, and an appreciation for diversity.
  
• The arts are an industry in their own right---the arts are an economically sound investment for communities of all sizes.  The arts are a net contributor to the nation’s economy.  The annual contributions of the arts to the national economy is over $36.8 billion a year.  The number of jobs supported by the arts nationally is over 1.3 billion.
  
• An arts education teaches directly to life attitudes and skills that businesses are looking for.  More and more executives are beginning to discover not only that the arts make for a more stimulating work environment, but they have a direct, positive impact on the bottom line.
  
• In the new arts education, children learn to convey ideas, feelings, and emotions by creating their own images. They learn to decode and understand the historical and cultural messages wrapped up in works of art.  They reflect on the meaning of their perceptions and experiences.
  
• Study of the arts encourages a suppleness of mind, a toleration for ambiguity, a taste for nuance, and the ability to make trade-offs among alternative courses of action.
  
• The arts are serious and rigorous academic subjects.  They are essential as an aspect of human knowledge.
  
• Students in the arts continue to outperform their non-art peers on the S.A.T. according to the College Entrance Examination Board. In 1995, SAT scores for students who studied the arts more than four years were 59 points higher on the Verbal and 44 points higher in the Math portions than students without the same art experiences.
  
• The arts convey knowledge and meaning not learned through the study of other subjects.  They represent a form of thinking and a way of knowing that is based in Human Imagination and Judgment.
  
• In the Goals 2000: Educate America Act, the arts are recognized as part of the core curriculum, alongside other challenging subject matter like: English, Mathematics, Science, Foreign Language, and History.
  
• An arts education teaches students to draw on new resources to empower their lives.
  
• An arts education brings many other faculties into play: Curiosity, Wonder, Delight, a Sense of Mystery, Satisfaction, (and Frustration if neglected).
  
• An arts education is part of the definition of what it means to be an “educated person” in other words, a critical and analytical learner, a confident decision-maker, a problem poser and problem solver, and an imaginative and creative thinker.
  
• Study of the arts helps students to think and work across traditional disciplines.  They learn to integrate knowledge and think outside the boxes.
  
• Art teachers daily ask their students to engage in learning activities which require use of higher-order thinking skills like analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.  Arts education, then, is first of all, an activity of the mind.
  
• An arts education focuses young people to have the eye of discernment that can separate the good from the mediocre, and the truly beautiful from the merely good.
  
• The learning is the doing, and the arts allow students TO DO!  No other educational medium offers the same opportunity.
  
• An arts education contributes to technological competence.  New technologies make it possible for students to try a cast array of solutions to artistic problems.  Technology can extend the reach of the art learner, but is difficult without a broad and content-rich arts education to use tools well and effectively.
  
• The cutting-edge worker in the Information Age Economy is the “Knowledge Worker,” a continuous and highly adaptable learner who possess a wide range of higher order thinking skills.  This employee is an IMAGINATIVE thinker with high-level COMMUNICATION and INTERPERSONAL skills