See also: introduction, resources, advocates, and gifts

25% of the U.S. population over the age of 12 is made up of "active music makers" (National Association of Music Merchants)

Recent news about the effects of group drumming on cancer-fighting cells (http://www.amc-music.org/drumstudy/), part of a growing body of work on the effects of music on wellness (http://www.amc-music.com/well.html).

Total expenses for music in higher education in the U.S. were $3,408,000,000, 1.79% of total expenditures for all of higher education. 33,944 persons are employed as music teaching and research faculty in higher education, 3.64% of the total population. Enrollment in music progams is approxmimately 310,619 students, 2% of the total student population. (Musician's Mall)

"Taking piano lessons improves specific math skills in elementary school children, according to a study by UC Irvine researchers. Piano instruction is believed to enhance the brain's 'hard-wiring' for temporal reasoning - the ability to visualize and transform objects in space and time. Music specificaly helps with fractions and proportional math." 1

"Regardless of socioeconomic background, students who make music get higher marks in standardized tests than those who had no music involvement, according to a UCLA study." 1

"Middle and high school students who participate in instrumental music programs score significantly higher in standardized tests, according to university studies in Georgia and Texas." 1

"The arts connect students to themselves and to one another, transform the environment for learning, provide new challenges for students already considered successful, and reach students who are not otherwise being reached, according to researchers from Harvard, Stanford, and UCLA. They also reinforce positive social behavior by promoting confidence, self-control, and teamwork." 1

"Music training helps underachievers, according to Rhode Island researchers, and motivates them to go to school." 1

"Students who participate in school band or orchestra have the lowest levels of current and lifelong use of alcohol, tobacco, and illegal drugs among any group in society, reports the Texas Commission on Drug and Alcohol Abuse." 1

"Business Week reports that the nation's top business executives agree that arts education programs can help repair weaknesses in education and better prepare workers for the future." 1

Nonetheless, artistic budgets continue to be cut. For example, there was "a 50 percent decline in the percentage of music studnts in California public schools over the past five years - from 18.5 percnt in the 1999-2000 school year to 9.3 percnt in 2003-04 - according to the Music for All Foundation study 'The Sound of Silence'. The greatest decline was in the area of general music, which suffered an 85 percent decrease in student enrollment. The number of music teachers declined yb 26.7 percent during the same period, representing an actual loss of 1,053 teachers." 2

Key issues (more details forthcoming):

• Core curriculum - Music has in the past not been regarded as part of basic curriculum. There are and have been efforts to re-instate music, and arts generally, as part of a core curriculum in schools, districts, several states, nationally, and in Canada. Under some curricula, of course, music and the arts are privelaged; under many, they are simply ignored.
• Infused curriculum - The idea that music can be instructive in the teaching of other disciplines, such as history in a song or math through scales. Sometimes this means use of music to improve or facilitate the presentation, such as a song about historical events, national heroes, or social movements. At its more extreme, the logic and language of music could be infused as a means of conveying the logic and language of other disciplines - or perhaps of addressing the realms of those other disciplines through music.
• Mozart effect - contention that the complexity of music shares something(s) in common with math, science, or learning generally; and/or proposition that music education has elements common to or conducive to math or science education, or to learning generally; and/or hypothesis that exposure to music and/or involvement in music education tends to increase math and science scores, and learning assessments generally.

Notes:

[1] from California Educator, June 2005, p.16
[2] from California Educator, June 2005, p.6