Americans Want Music Education, Research Shows

With the way that schools in California (and other states) have been gutting/removing their music programs, you would think that people didn’t care about music education.  This seems to not be true, according to a 2009 Gallup Poll of American attitudes toward music.

According to the survey, the majority of Americans completely or mostly agree that benefits for children and teenagers playing musical instruments include:

• Helping a child develop creativity(97%)

• Helping develop teamwork skills from playing in a school band (96%)

• Helping a child’s overall intellectual development (94%)

• Relieving stress and providing relaxation, which is needed during these troubled economic times (94%)

• Helping make friends (93%)

• Helping prepare them to be creative and innovative in the workforce (91%)

• Yielding better grades, teaches discipline, motivates them to stay in school (88%)

• Making you smarter (83%)

• Most (92%) completely or mostly agree that schools should offer music as part of the regular curriculum

• Eight in ten completely or mostly agree that music education should be mandated by states

• Most (87%) completely or strongly agree that music is a very important part of their life

“Everywhere you look, you see how the pastime of playing music is continuing to gain in popularity with people of all ages, as evidenced by our recent Gallup poll,” said Joe Lamond, president and CEO, NAMM. “More people are realizing the fun and many proven benefits of playing music and are taking that next step without worry that they might not be good or talented enough to enjoy playing.”

So if most Americans are on board about the importance of music, why are music programs so vulnerable to curriculum cuts?  Part of the reason has to do with the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, which set into place national tests focusing mainly on Math, Science, and Reading. 

As a result, when schools scrambled to create curriculum emphasizing those subjects, many arts education programs such as music suffered.  This is a sad oversight when research shows that music education can have a great impact on a student’s scholastic performance.

This is because “Participation in the arts gives students a way to achieve on a personal level, often within the context of achieving as a group that is identified with the school. The resulting mix of personal motivation and social integration into the school community has been valued by teachers for years — think of the observation that “85 percent on a math test is pretty good, but no student is satisfied with hitting 85 percent of the notes in a musical performance.” The results of this attitudinal benefit of arts study now shows up in a variety of measures, including statistics on cognitive engagement and dropout prevention.”

If the research is right that parents, and our society, do care about music education, hopefully we will see music activities reinstated into our schools and communities.   Children of today deserve access to arts education, and our society deserves the bright future that access can help build.

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