As extensive studies and reports reveal, the study and practice of music serve to boost children鈥檚 mathematical abilities. While many schools struggle to manage time, course schedules, and the cost of music programs, expert educators assert that music education classes are imperative to a child鈥檚 development.
Research and Support
When examining the music education curriculum in most elementary schools, many students are forced to be pulled out of core classes in order to attend music lessons. While many school leaders feel that pulling students out of core classes leads to deficits in cognitive growth, data and investigative studies report otherwise. According to (NAME), a 1995 study of Ohio elementary schools reveals that pulling students out of core classes for enrichment opportunities does not harm student achievement.
While most administrators and leaders express concern about enrichment pull-outs, the Ohio study shows that students who were pulled out of core classes for a thirty-minute string instrument session two times per week scored higher than students who were not pulled out of class in every assessed subject!
Specifically, in examining the math scores of the children, string students scored an average of nearly 215 points on the Ohio Proficiency Test, while non-string students scored an average of nearly 212. In further examining the assessment results of the string versus non-string students, and to make the analysis as fair as possible, researchers of the Ohio schools 鈥淟ooked at students' scores on a previous standardized
