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Cover Letter

Dear Mr. Dennis L. Riker: Superintendent of Easton Area School District,

It has come to my attention that the Easton School District has been doing poorly on tests issued by the state of Pennsylvania. With the districts poor performance, two schools also need improvement to meet state standards based on the Adequate Yearly Progress as stated on your website. With these performances levels being low, I am writing this letter to show you a way to help possibly improve the performance of your schools and help all the schools in your district to meet the state standards.

Music education has always been shown to have a connection with improved brain power along with helping students to do better in school, and in recent studies these assumptions have been proven. Music has been shown to improve how well students do in standardized tests along with helping them to become a better person by gaining important traits that help them out later in life.

With the addition of music programs to the curriculum of your schools, you can help to improve the scores of your students and help them become more successful. In the report attached to this letter I have shown why music education classes are important to a student and why they make a good class to offer to students. I hope that this report helps as you try to better educate today’s youth.

Thank you for your time,

Benjamin Adams

Undergraduate Student of Pennsylvania State University

Since the beginning of time, music has always been a part of ones life. It is a form of expression that can have many affects on a person, such as making someone sad or happy, and has the ability to help improve students as a school class. When schools were founded many included types of music education and today a majority of schools still have these programs. With many schools facing budget cuts each year programs must be taken out of the school to allow it to continue to function. One of these programs is music education, which has offered many different opportunities to those who participate in it. It has been shown to have many benefits that would make it a great class that schools would offer. Music is a program that not only educates the children in how to play the instrument, but also makes them more intelligent and helps them do better in other academic courses. The following essay proceeds by looking at tests and studies that show why music education should be considered an important course, and why this should compel schools to keep these programs. It will also show how music helps students do better in different courses and helps to create skills that are helpful throughout their life. I will also show how music has a strong correlation between increased brain power and that children become smarter when playing music.

Implementing music education classes into schools, especially at the elementary levels, and having the students participate in them helps to produce students that are overall smarter, better educated, and have gained traits, such as discipline and creativity that will help them throughout their life. Studies have shown that when a child engages in the act of performing music, brain function increases along with a child’s ability to do higher level reasoning, helping to make them smarter. So a child is able to do better in other academic courses and help the school look better by doing better on standardized tests. Every child that goes through a school should have an education in playing a musical instrument and schools should adopt programs to complete this goal.

Music as a core class in schools

With many schools having lower standardized test scores and the increasing difficulty of raising enough funds to support schools something needs to be done to help the students do better. Music has been downplayed and should be one of the classes that all children should be required to take. So, music education classes are one of the most important classes that a child can take while going through school.

Determining what makes an important class in schools is hard. The class has to meet many different stipulations; first it must present a certain curriculum, so the class must teach you something. Along with teaching the student something, a class must challenge the student and create skills that they will be able to use in later life. Many classes do this like English, which teaches a student how to communicate clearly to another person. Lastly the class must help them out in other areas of study along with helping them in that area of study. Some people believe that not all classes teach you something or are useful, but as long as someone is learning something than we can call it a class. All of these points help to create a good class that produces a well educated student who is able to offer a lot to the world.

Now that we have determined what makes an important class, we can show that music should be one of the most important classes a child takes at a young age and continues to take. Music classes teach a child a variety of different things, ranging from how to sing, how to play a musical instrument, or even how to count in time and rhythm. By learning these skills in a music class the child gains many benefits. Music education has been shown to increase brain function, as shown in a study conducted by Dr. Timo Krings. In the study he “tested piano players and non-musicians of the same age and sex, requiring them to perform complex sequences of finger movements. Their brains were scanned using a technique called ‘functional magnetic resource imaging’ which detects the activity levels of brain cells. The test showed those that the non-musicians could do the same thing that the piano players could do, yet the piano players required less brain function to complete the same thing” (Music Education). Being introduced to a musical instrument also helps students to succeed in other school classes, especially in math due to the functions the child’s brain develops when playing music. A comprehensive study done in the Albuquerque, New Mexico area showed that kids who were learning to play a musical instrument outperformed those who were not in every single skill test that was given to the children (Benefits).

Participating in music programs also helps student’s live successful lives. It has been shown that many of today’s CEO’s and congressmen cite music as one of the reasons as being successful (Music Education). From example this shows that many people who have participated in music became quite successful and powerful. Many people who have become successful, though, have not had musical training and cannot claim this to be true. Although there is no requirement of playing music to being successful, it has been shown that it helps. “Music studies develop skills that are necessary in the workplace. It focuses on ‘doing’ as opposed to observing, and teaches students how to perform, literally anywhere in the world” (Twelve benefits).

Musical classes help to better educate the children that are involved in them and should be one of the core classes in today’s schools. Schools should sponsor a variety of music classes and have their students take them throughout their primary education years. As defined above, music education classes help to better educate children, increasing brain function, and making them overall smarter. These music classes help our children by bettering them in more than just how to play an instrument, it helps them in many ways. While many people like to discredit music education and have been trying to get rid of them due to budget cuts, music classes are important classes and should be given the same priority as any other core class, like English.

Music helps to better educate children

Education has always been a competitive market, where schools try to hire the best teachers and create a good reputation to get good students coming to the schools. Along with that, people are always trying to get their children to do their best and to succeed in life. To help their children do better in school, many people have had their children play a musical instrument while they were young. This has been done because there has been a strong correlation between doing well in academic areas when children play a musical instrument at a young age. In the following couple of paragraphs I will show that when children are introduced to music at a young age, they do better in other academic areas along with generally being smarter and better equipped in today’s society.

Playing music is an enjoyable thing to do in school and has many benefits other than just giving you a channel to express yourself. Music has an important part in almost everybody’s life, and seems to get someone’s attention no matter what age. Playing music is shown to make a child smarter and help them do better in school, along with many other things. Many studies and reports have been done to show these results, yet the explanation for this is still unclear. Exactly how music enhances learning is not clear, but scientists believe that when children receive music instruction their brains form connections between neurons in patterns that also help them to do higher reasoning. (Ward) By playing music, children are able to do higher reasoning and become smarter. Along with increased brain function, children do better on tests in almost all subjects. Therefore music has the ability to help children do better in other classes while at the same time aid in increasing a child’s creativity.

A main counter-argument that people bring up about how music makes children do better in school and in learning information is that it is not music that makes the child smarter, but something else. Because there is uncertainty as to why music makes children smarter, many people like to believe that music cannot cause children to be smarter. Because children are involved in many different activities, there are a number of factors that could make a child smarter. It could be that playing a sport could benefit a child because it causes a child to act as a team and learn the rules of a game. People could also point out that art classes may help create smarter children. Art is in the same classification as music and may make the brain act the same way, so as to improve its function. While these reasons could be true there is no evidence from research and studies to support it. “Experts note that a year’s musical training can increase a child’s IQ by as much as ten points! SAT scores show that students with experience in music scored fifteen to thirty points above the mean. Schools that were showing low academic accomplishments improved dramatically when music was added to the curriculum” (Why Music?). Music has been shown through many different tests, such as those found in Critical Links: Learning in the Arts and Student Academic and Social Development, that overall brain function is better and that children do better on many different skills tests than those who do not play musical instruments.

Another problem with the idea that children are smarter due to music is that the tests are from biased reports. All the people that go through these studies and test want to play music and most likely enjoy it. So if children that did not want to play music had to play an instrument, would they actually become smarter? The answer to this can be shown in a study by researchers at the University of Montreal. They used “various brain imaging techniques to investigate brain activity during musical tasks and found that sight-reading musical scores and playing music both activate regions in all four of the cortex's lobes; and that parts of the cerebellum are also activated during those tasks” (Music Education). This shows that by just attempting to play music or even reading the music can help a child out. So as long as the child is in the class, being taught and playing the instrument, the child is becoming smarter. By introducing music to children, it helps to increase their brain power and help them develop so that they do better in other academic areas of school.

Music helps to improve schools

Schools are always looking at ways to improve education and try to produce students who have learned a good deal of information, and also ones that do well on standardized tests, like the PSSA in Pennsylvania. Amongst large budget issues and limited time for class, schools have been removing programs so that they are able to continue to function. One of these programs that most often gets removed is music classes like orchestra or band. Schools should try to keep music classes instead of removing them because they are classes that are beneficial to schools. Music classes offer many things that make these classes an incentive to keep, from providing a form of expression to helping them do better on standardized tests, which is how most schools receive funding and recognition.

By offering music classes and having students take these courses, students’ scores on the tests could be improved and more funding could come from the state. Along with a possible increase in funding, schools receive good recognition when they do well on these tests, which attract people who move to the area to these schools. Many people argue that music classes are not needed because of the large amount of funding they need to function. Music classes can be very costly, where the schools must pay for music, hire teachers and pay for instruments that the students need. This tends to add up to a large sum of money, but when we look at what music does for children, these costs are easily outweighed by the benefits gained.

Schools are always looking at ways to fit the most amount of teaching into the small amount of time in a school day. With these music classes, the time that could be used to teach the student something else is lost. While some people may feel that they are not gaining knowledge that would be useful, music classes teach students many different skills, from teamwork, to discipline which are used throughout ones lives. Along with these skills, music helps to better educate a person as it teaches them about different cultures and style, making it a well rounded class.

With the addition of music programs to ones school, or keeping such a program that already exists, schools will be able to help children become better educated. They will be able to introduce them into a field of the arts that will help them out later in life as well as while they go through school. The schools will most likely also benefit because of the increased test scores. When the decision of what to do with a music program comes up, the simple answer is that due to the greater benefits then the costs, the program should continue to exist. Since schools want to always help the children and teach them well, they should create music programs in their elementary schools and have the children participate in these classes.

How to help schools with music? What to do

As a plan to help students get better education I intend to get music education programs initiated in school districts. Education has always played an important role in the training and teaching of today’s youth. There are many different forms of education, from technical training in a field to the classroom teaching done at most schools. For children to get the best education a musical instrument should be played at a young age and continued throughout most of their school years. Schools should have musical programs in their elementary schools and have students participate in these programs. To help children get a better education and have a better chance in doing well in school, I propose that schools should have young students take a music class and play a musical instrument starting at a young age.

Instead of all schools having their students in music programs, I first propose that Easton (Pennsylvania) Area’s school district change their education programs and adopt this idea. Easton’s school district will be used as a pilot school because it currently has one of the lowest graduating rates in the Lehigh Valley. They also have some of the lowest test scores in the Lehigh Valley, having only about half of Easton’s students met or exceeded the states standards on tests (Mathias), making it perfect to test my proposal and use as a pilot school for the plan. To complete the proposal, Easton will first have to implement music programs in the 4th grade and require all of the students in that grade to take at least one of these courses, whether it be band, chorus or orchestra. The children or parents can choose what class they would like to participate in. Along with being in a band, chorus, or orchestra, the schools will also require elementary level children to take a music education class. In the class they will learn about the history of music, and the fundamentals of music. The children will continue to be in the music programs until they reach high school, minus the music history class which the students will take one full year of. The children will start out young, because music has a greater effect on younger children due to the growth that the children go through.

To create this program, music teachers and directors will have to be hired to teach all of the children. The schools will need to supply the children with instruments to use, so instruments for the children will also have to be purchased or be donated. One organization that does such a thing is through VH1, called VH1 Save The Music, where the television station raises money to buy musical instruments and donates them to schools where the music programs do not exist. Music will also have to be purchased for the student’s instruction. Parents will feel no direct cost of this project because they are not going to have to pay for the instruments or the music, these things will be supplied to the children. This project is quite feasible for the district because they already have music programs in their secondary education programs and all they would have to do is modify their primary education to create these more extensive programs. This only means hiring a few more teachers instead of a whole group of teachers.

A program of having students being taught how to play a musical instrument has many benefits, one being that it helps children do better in other academic classes. When the program has been started, children will be introduced to music at a young age. When this occurs, the brain becomes more functional and helps the students to succeed better in school, especially in math based courses. At the end of the 5 years that the child participates in this program, many skills will have been developed that will help them to succeed in high school and to receive higher scores on their college entrance exams. Many studies have shown a connection between the participation in musical programs and better standardized test scores along with better skills in other academic instructions. “According to U.S. Senator Thad Cochran (R-MS), ‘While many of us have known arts education enhances academic instruction, Critical Links (by Arts Education Partnership) is the first report of the hard evidence that supports this conclusion’”(Arts Education). Not only is improvement in other academic areas seen, but children have been shown to be less involved in illegal activity and it has been shown that children that play musical instruments have a better chance of going to college than those that do not (Music Education). Music should be an integral part of a child’s education and schools should have their young students begin music programs in their elementary years and continue through with them until high school

References

“Arts Education Partnership Publishes Critical Links on Cross-Curricular Benefits of Music.” Teaching Music 30 Aug. 2002: pg. 16. MasterFILE Premier. EBSCOhost. 2005. 27 Nov. 2005 < http://www.powerlibrary.org>.

"Benefits of Music." Amro Music. 03 Nov. 2005 <http://www.amromusic.com/Benefits_of_Music/benefits_of_music.htm>.

Mathias, Madaleine. "Easton, Bangor schools credited with narrowing gap." Morning Call 25 Nov. 2005. 07 Dec. 2005 <http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-b6_3ratingnov25,0,6654842.story>.

"Music Education Facts and Figures." The National Association for Music Education. 03 Nov. 2005 <http://www.menc.org/information/advocate/facts.html>.

"Twelve Benefits of Music Education." Children's Music Workshop's. 04 Dec. 2005 <http://www.childrensmusicworkshop.com/advocacy/12benefits.html>.

Ward, Mark. "Professor chimes in on benefits of teaching kids to make music." OnWEAC. 14 July 1997. 03 Nov. 2005 <http://www.weac.org/kids/april97/music.htm>.

"Why Music? Because it is Advantageous Academically." Why Music? 02 Dec. 2005 <http://www.whymusic.org/aisfor.htm>.

Critical Links publication can be found at the following web address:

<http://www.aep-arts.org/PDF%20Files/CriticalLinks.pdf>