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Category: Statistic |
Issue(s) Addressed: Standards-based curricula |
Arts Education in Public Elementary and Secondary Schools: 1999-2000. Fast Response Survey System (FRSS). Nancy Carey, Brian Kleiner, Rebecca Porch, Elizabeth Farris (June 2002) NCES 2002131
Large secondary schools (1,000 or more students) are more likely than small secondary schools (less than 400 students) to provide instruction in music (95 percent versus 84 percent)
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Category: Statistic |
Issue(s) Addressed: Supporting learning in other subjects |
“College-Bound Seniors National Report: Profile of SAT Program Test Takers,” Princeton, NJ: The College Entrance Examination Board, 2001
The College Entrance Examination Board found that students in music appreciation scored 63 points higher on verbal and 44 points higher on math than students with no arts participation.
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Category: Statistic |
Issue(s) Addressed: Music and overall budget |
Letter to School and Education Community Leaders, August 2009
Under ESEA, states and local school districts have the flexibility to support the arts. Title I, Part A of ESEA funds arts education to improve the achievement of disadvantaged students. Funds under Title II of ESEA can be used for professional development of arts teachers as well as for strategic partnerships with cultural, arts, and other nonprofit organizations.... Moreover, local school districts can use funds under the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for the arts along with other district expenses.
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Category: Statistic |
Issue(s) Addressed: Sequential programs |
National Center for Education Statistics, Fast Response Survey System
Music instruction can take a variety of forms in elementary schools. While schools typically offer students classes in general music during the regular school day, many schools also offer separate instruction dedicated to chorus, band, or strings/orchestra. In general, these kinds of specialized learning experiences are offered as electives to students who express interest in learning how to sing in a group or how to play an instrument.
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Category: Statistic |
Issue(s) Addressed: Supporting the school environment for learning |
Arts Education in Public Elementary and Secondary Schools: 1999-2000. Fast Response Survey System (FRSS). Nancy Carey, Brian Kleiner, Rebecca Porch, Elizabeth Farris (June 2002) NCES 2002131
Results of the secondary school survey show that 64 percent of schools included the arts in their mission statements, yearly goals, or school improvement plans. Schools in the Northeast were more likely to report that their mission statement included the arts than were schools in other regions of the country (79 percent versus 58 to 63 percent). About half of public secondary schools (49 percent) had undertaken a school reform initiative related to arts eduation or the integration of the arts with other acacdemic subjects. Again, schools in the Northeast were more likely to report involvement in some arts education reform than were schools in other regions of the country (72 percent versus 38 to 50 percent).
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Category: Statistic |
Issue(s) Addressed: Music and overall budget |
Arts Education in Public Elementary and Secondary Schools: 1999-2000. Fast Response Survey System (FRSS). Nancy Carey, Brian Kleiner, Rebecca Porch, Elizabeth Farris (June 2002) NCES 2002131
Principals were asked whether their schools received funding from outside (non-district) sources, including (but not limited to) parent groups, booster clubs, or local businesses, to fund their instructional programs in music. If they did, principals were asked to indicate the approximate percentage of the music budget that came from these sources. Unlike public elementary schools that had limited non-district funding of music programs (20 percent), nearly half of public secondary schools (47 percent) received non-district funding for their music programs. Schools with the highest minority enrollment were less likely to report this kind of funding than schools with the lowest minority enrollment (33 percent versus 56 percent), as were schools with the highest poverty concentration compared with those with less than 35 percent and 35 to 49 percent poverty concentrations. (23 percent versus 54 and 47 percent, respectively). About half (53 percent) of the secondary schools with access to non-district funding reported that 10 percent of less of their music budget came from such sources. Another 34 percent reported that between 11 and 50 percent of their budget was funded from non-district funds.
Musicians’ brains are different
The Washington Post reports,
Brain researchers have found another clue to how the brains of musicians differ from the rest of us.
Peter Schneider of the University of Heidelberg in Germany and colleagues monitored brain activity while 12 professional musicians, 13 amateur musicians and 12 non-musicians heard various tones.
Professional musicians had the most activity in a part of the brain involved in processing sound, called the Heschl’s gyrus, which was also larger than that of the amateurs and non-musicians.
In remains unclear if the difference is inborn or the result of training early in life, the researchers said.
“The question remains whether early exposure to music or a genetic predisposition leads to the functional and anatomical differences between musicians and non-musicians,” the researchers wrote in the July issue of the journal Nature Neuroscience.
Music Training fine-tunes memory
HealthDay News Service
If Mom marched you to piano lessons or forced you to join the school orchestra, now may be the time to thank her.
Students who participate in musical training, such as playing the violin or flute, have better verbal memory than those who don’t, claims a Hong Kong study published in the July issue of Neuropsychology.
The longer the training, the better the verbal memory adds study author Agnes S. Chan, a psychologist at Chin, a psychologist at Chinese University of Hong Kong.
“Not so fast,” counters at least one expert who contends the students who take music lesson may simply have those cognitive abilities to begin with.
Chan and her colleagues evaluated 90 boys, ages 6 to 15. Half participated in the school string orchestra program or took music lessons on instruments for one to five years. The other half had no training in music.
Chan’s team gave the youngsters tests of verbal memory, asking them to recall as many words as they could from a list, and visual memory, asking them to recall images.
Those with musical training recalled about 20 percent more words than those without such training. Their verbal memories got better the longer they had taken music training. No differences in visual memory were found.
Musical training during childhood, Chan writes, “might serve as a kind of sensory stimulation that somehow contributes to better development of the left temporal lobe in musicians.” This, in turn, might facilitate verbal memory, which is mediated by the specific brain area, she adds.
But she concedes she has done no brain imaging to prove that. So the next step is “to conduct a functional (magnetic resonance imaging) MRI study on individuals with music training to examine the neurocognitive process of the brain,” Chan says.
The results make sense to another expert who has studies the same subject.
“I found this study to be extremely interesting,’ says Frances Ranuscher, an associate professor of cognitive development at the University of Wisconsin.
“It provides strong evidence not only for a link between the music and verbal memory, but also for the notion that specific types of experience affect specific cognitive domains. The finding that verbal memory, but not visual memory, is affected is very important to this specificity hypothesis. The study complements the growing number of reports showing differences between the brains of musicians and non musicians.
“Overall, the research supports the idea that early training in music affects brain development and related cognitive function,” Rauscher says.
But Nora Newcombe, a psychology professor at Temple University in Philadelphia, says there are two major flaws in the new study.
The students were not randomized to the music and non-music groups, they were “self-selected,” she points out. And, she adds, “it show nothing (in a study) when you self-select.”
The researchers’ lack of brain imaging also bothers Newcombe.
“it could be true,” Necombe says of the finding, that musically trained students have better verbal memory skills. But sofar, the researchers have not proved it to her satisfaction.
Meanwhile, Chan says she is not suggesting parents demand their children take music lessons only in the interest of improving memory.
“Learning music one way, but not the only way, to improve verbal memory,” she says.
-Letter from a wonderful student of Mr. Paul Batiste-
My name is Cherolyn Thompson. I played the flute in your band at
Gentilly Terrace from 2001-2004. I just wanted to look you up and tell
you how much I appreciate you and everything that you taught me those
three years. Playing in the band has to be some of my fondest memories
from my childhood. Thank you for giving me my first real taste of
leadership and discipline. Thank you for introducing me to what I've
always considered to be my first love. It's been years since I've
actually been able to play (after Katrina my older sister took her
flute back from me), but I plan on picking it back up real soon. I
have enstilled in me a love for music I will never forget, as I'm sure
all the rest of your students have.
Thank you again,
Cherolyn