Advocate Music and Art in schools...

Mozart's Piano Sonata K448 was found to significantly increase spatial scores of college students on IQ tests when the Sonata was listened to for 10 minutes, dubbed the "Mozart Effect."

From Nature, Copyright 1993. Drs. Rauscher and Shaw, University of California, Irvine

"...a vibrant arts community is critical to how corporations decide where to locate, when people decide where to work."

Megatrends & Megatrends 2000, John Naisbitt

"I believe arts education in music, theater, dance, and the visual arts is one of the most creative ways we have to find the gold that is buried just beneath the surface. They [children]
have an enthusiasm for life. a spark of creativity and vivid imaginations that need training ... training that prepares them to become confident young men and women."

U.S. Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley

"Music, to me, was-is-representative of everything I like most in life. It's beautiful and fun, but very rigorous. If you wanted to be good you had to work like crazy. It was a real
relationship between effort and reward. My musical life experiences were just as important to me, in terms of forming my development, as my political experiences or my academic
life."

President Bill Clinton. From The Gifts of Music. Copyright (c) 1994 by Music Educators Vadortal Conference. Used with permission.

Today's music students are more self-motivated, interested in technology, and are better musicians than students two decades ago.

1995 survey conducted by the Music Teachers National Association

Parents are crucial in helping implement the National Standards for Arts Education by assessing the school's arts education program and teacher qualification; evaluating the community's cultural assets; and forming an arts education coalition.

What Parents Can Do. Music Educators National Conference and The National PTA

The U.S. Department of Labor issued a report urging schools to teach for the future workplace. The skills they recommend (working in teams, communication, self-esteem, creative thinking, imagination, and invention) are exactly those learned in school music and arts education programs
Seventy-one percent of respondents in the Gallup Survey think music education should be mandated by states.

1994 Gallup Survey

A Gallup Survey on American's attitudes towards music revealed the following:

* 93% of Gallup Survey respondents agreed music is part of a well-rounded education

* 86% felt all schools should offer instrumental music as part of regular curriculum

* 88% believe music helps a child's overall intellectual development

* 70% believe school music program participation corresponds to better grades and test scores

* 85% believe communities should provide financial resources to support these programs.

There is a direct correlation between improved SAT scores and the length of time spent studying the arts.

Profiles of SAT and Achievement Test Takers, The College Board, compiled by MENC.

Disadvantaged preschoolers display dramatic improvements in spatial reasoning ability after music training.

Drs. Rauscher and Shaw, University of California, Irvine