Apr 28 2008
New York Times article: challenges assumption that arts education boosts higher academic performance
Say it isn’t so…but this article deserve your attention the next time you try to justify your music program based on the assumption that it improves academic performance in other subject areas…
Here is a revealing quote:
There’s just one problem with this ostensibly hardheaded defense of arts education. The studies invoked as proof that involvement in band — or dance or sculpture — spurs higher academic performance actually show nothing of the sort.
Follow this link to the article:
Arts – Education – Schools – New York Times
I have my distinct thoughts on this that I will post about next time…give me your feedback in a comment below.
Good article.
Someone was arguing (and may have been been you) that using academics as a justification for music is the wrong argument anyway. We’re teaching music because of the ways in which in enriches our lives and encourages creativity.
I look forward to your comeback.
if they are only using change in standardized tests results we can’t judge the affect the arts has on learning other subjects since standardized tests are not an accurate measure of learning
It seems clear that arts education is good both for the benefits it brings to the student and for the ways it can help the student think critically across the spectrum of learning. Mark Cooper, a visual arts educator, posted today about it on Beacon Broadside. I’d love to hear your response.
This is exactly the type of thing one of my former music profs used to warn us about. “What happens when your music students start getting lower test scores?” We can’t put all our music advocacy eggs into one basket. What happens when the educational pendulum swings the other direction, away from test scores? Ever since this current emphasis on test scores (NCLB) took root, educators and politicians alike have been trying to change it. So the argument about music students getting high test scores may neither be true nor be significant.
This article is not aware of the Kodaly convincing the Hungarian education system to teach music in Hungary in the 1940′s. Those students who did receive music instruction scored higher in reading, writing and math.