STATUS REPORT: MUSIC IN THE ST. HELENS PUBLIC SCHOOLS

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Introduction

This panic has been so severe and irrational as to cause the discounting of significant studies indicating the importance of the arts in a balanced curriculum. Research by Regeiski, Milley, Home, Kaufman, Rees, Wilson, Gardner, et al, indicate that music is one of the basic intelligences and participation is vital to the intellectual development and academic success of the student. This evidence is corroborated by the SAT scores of music students (See Figure 1).

Figure 1

Mean SAT Scores, 1994 - 1996
Students of the Arts	Verbal			Math
Coursework/Study	'94	95	'96	'94	'95	'96
Acting/Play Production	463	469	545	503	507	530
Art History/Appreciation	438	443	520	489	491	516
Dance	431	437	514	489	491	505
Drama Study or Appreciation	453	458	535	491	494	519
Music Study or Appreciation	456	461	538	504	508	532
Music Performance	446	451	529	498	501	526
Photography/Film	443	448	525	493	496	521
Studio Art/Design	444	449	525	498	501	524
4 or more yrs arts study	453	459	537	500	506	531
3 yrs arts study	432	436	514	481	483	509
2 yrs arts study	426	430	507	481	482	508
l yr arts study	417	422	500	478	481	507
.5 yr or less arts study	408	411	489	470	470	497
No arts coursework	397	400	478	462	462	490
Mean for Ml Students	423	428	428	479	482	508

[The College Board College-Bound Seniors National Report; Profile of SAT Program Test Takers, 1994, 1995, and 1996.]

The College Board recognized that while no causality could be established at this point, results indicate that "students' scores tend to increase with more years of arts study." And,

"Students who take arts courses have generally higher SAT scores than those who do not take arts courses. The more arts work a high school student takes, generally speaking, the higher his or her SAT scores. This is especially evident in students' verbal mean scores. This information suggests that students cannot justifiably be counseled to cease taking arts courses because other courses can better prepare them for college and the SAT.

Studies done by the board demonstrate that high grades in high school or college and high scores on the ACT are totally unreliable as predictors of a student's potential for success in life, while achievement in extra-curricular or co- curricular activities in high school (independent self-sustained ventures) was shown to be the best predictor of creativity in mature life. ["Startling/Disturbing Research on School Program Effectiveness, "Wayne Jennings and Joe Nathan. Phi Delta Kappan. March, 1977.]

Research by Dr. Frank Wilson, a neurologist from the University of San Francisco School of Medicine, indicates that 80-90% of the brain's motor-control capabilities is devoted to the hands, mouth, and throat. He feels that by developing highly refined control in those areas, a child is stimulating a large portion of the brain, and that increased intelligence is therefore helped by participation in music. [Tone Deaf and All Thumbs. Dr. Frank Wilson.]

Further, research by the Association of American Medical Colleges indicates that the national admittance rate of music students who apply to medical school is the highest of all majors at 66.7%, while the highest admittance rate of the sciences is biochemistry at 59.2%. ["Music Education - Just What the Doctor Ordered." Les Susi. The Instrumentalist. July, 1990. Student Data Development Program, DEMR, Association of American Medical Colleges.]

A recent project funded by the Florida Department of Education indicates that At-Risk Students who became involved in arts courses improved academically and were influenced to continue in school and graduate. When asked what specific aspects of their arts courses were most effective in retaining At-Risk students, teachers most frequently mentioned the importance of performance and the social interaction and camaraderie that come from being part of an arts group or performing ensemble. ["Arts Education Improves At-Risk Students' Overall Performance, Study Finds." Music Educators Journal. November, 1992.]

In THE GEORGIA PROJECT: A Status Report on Arts Education in the State of Georgia, a study involving over 641,000 students, regression analysis was used to examine relationships between levels of school district funding of arts programs and student achievement. A summary of major finding is listed in Figure 2.

Figure 2

Relationship Descriptor	p-value	Confidence
Districts that make staffing and funding of their arts programs a priority tend to have higher overall rates of student participation in the arts and higher rates of arts student retention (lower rates of attrition).	.08	92%
Such districts tend to have lower dropout rates in grades 9-12 and thus keep their students in school longer and graduate more of them.	.08	92%
Their students tend to score higher on achievement and performance tests, such as the SAT and the Georgia High School Graduation Test.	.03-08	92-97%
They tend to graduate more of their students with college prep diplomas, percentages increasing with diversity of arts curricula and percent of students participating.	.007	99+%
The above relationships may not apply equally across socio-economic and ethnic groups. Specifically, the study found that arts student retention rates are negatively correlated with both ethnic minority percent of enrollment and percent of enrollment eligible for subsidized lunch (a measure of district affluence).	.003-.01	99+%

While the above findings do not prove a cause and effect relationship, they do indicate that "...strong arts programs need not come at the expense of academic achievement. Rather, the arts are an important factor in achieving academic excellence." (Music In World Cultures, 1997)

Excerpts from the report of ongoing research at the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory indicate the importance of including music training at the earliest possible time in the intellectual development of the child.

"Our.. program with three-year-olds (including children enrolled in an inner- city daycare center) indicates that music training significantly enhanced performance on specific non-verbal age-appropriate spatial reasoning tasks!

"We suggest that music can be used not only as a 'window'into examining higher brain functions but as a means to enhance them. That music is universally appreciated, even at birth, gives it an enormous advantage as a means of developing higher brain function.

"Children were issued the Performance subtest of the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence-Revised (WPPSI-R) upon admittance to the school.

"Students' performance on the Object Assembly task was substantially better after receiving music training than before training.. .(and) scaled scores of the children in the (inner-city) daycare center increased dramatically over the three testing periods, from 6.4 prior to receiving music training to 12.2 six months after training began." ["Pilot Study Indicates Music Training of Three-Year- Olds Enhances Specific Spatial Reasoning Skills". Frances H. Rausher, Gordon L. Shaw, Linda 3. Levine, and Eric L. Wright. University of California, Irvine. August, 1993. NOTE: Continuing results of the study substantiate original findings.]

NOTE: Subsequent reports indicate that "spatial reasoning skills increased 46% for those taking music, and only 6% for those who did not. [MENC Today. November, 1994.]

And yet administrators have often been so involved with the adult issues of balancing the budget and manipulating class schedules, that focus on the total social, academic and intellectual development of the student has been lost in the shuffle.

Examples in California are most notable, where cuts in public school instrumental music programs caused a 57% statewide reduction in student participation from 1981-1989 (See Figure 3).

Figure 3

Year	Instrumental Music Students
1981	124,000
1989	53.000
Lost Enrollment	71,000

[The California Basic Educational Data System]

Several observations may be made concerning this drop in student participation.

1. While the example above specifically relates to instrumental music, similar patterns have occurred with student participation in vocal music as a result of the elimination of elementary vocal/general music curriculums.

2. The 71,000 students eliminated from participation in instrumental music were taught by approximately 355 music teachers.

3. To teach the same 71,000 students in the regular classroom requires approximately 473 classroom teachers.

4. If one assumes the average cost of a teacher, including benefits, to be $45,000, it becomes evident that the anticipated cost savings actually becomes a significant additional expense (See Figure 4).

Further observations:

1. The cost of replacing large music performance classes that disappeared because of the elimination of feeder programs is obvious.

2. While the elimination of music programs was done in part to help balance the educational budget, a secondary issue was the desire to put more money into increasing test scores in reading, mathematics and the sciences.

3. The continuing downward trend of test scores in the state of California has been well documented, further substantiating the research that demonstrates the importance of arts study for the academic and intellectual development of the total student.

The attack on arts curricula has been so fierce that in March, 1989, the 126,000 member Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) adopted the following resolution supporting the inclusion of the visual and performing arts in a balanced curriculum.

"Integration of Visual and Performing Arts in Curriculum"

"With recent focus on specific subject matter, academic achievement, and a series of reform efforts/movements that emphasize raising test scores and graduation requirements, a balance of curriculum offerings is not being maintained. Dance, drama, music, and the visual and performing arts are disciplines with aesthetic, perceptual, creative, and intellectual dimensions. They foster students' abilities to create, experience, analyze, and reorganize, thereby encouraging intuitive and emotional responses. The arts can increase self-discipline and motivation, contribute to a positive self-image, provide an acceptable outlet for emotions, and help to develop creative and intuitive thinking processes not always inherent in other academic disciplines.

"ASCD supports the concept that arts education is essential in a balanced curriculum and urges educators to include the visual and performing arts at all appropriate levels of education. The Association encourages educators to explore opportunities to integrate the arts in an interdisciplinary approach to education and seek a variety of techniques to assess such an approach." [Emphasis added.]

In her book Endangered Minds: Why Our Children Don't Think, researcher Jane Healy notes that children who watch a lot of television actually have smaller brains (pp.47-55,195-234). She states,

"If we wish to remain a literate culture, someone is going to have to take the responsibility for teaching children at all socioeconomic levels how to talk, listen, and think.. .before neural foundations for verbal expression, sustained attention, and analytic thought end up as piles of shavings under the workbench of plasticity."

Conversely, research indicates that children who study music perform better in all areas of academic endeavor. Whether research results are associative or causal (as indidated by much recent brain research), the fact is that music is good for students in all levels and areas of academic pursuit.

Based on this and other research, the national educational goals established in America 2000, as enacted by the United States Congress in 1993-94, recognize and include the arts as CORE curriculum. The National Standards for Music Education developed in cooperation with the Music Educators National Conference will serve as the measurement device for music programs related to America 2000.

Home
History of Music in the St. Helens Public Schools
Short and Long Term Impacts
Curriculum Impacts
Student Participation Impacts
Economic Impacts
Summary, Conclusions and Recommendations
Appendix A