The Seattle Times
Hundreds of parents and students recently protested cuts in arts and special education programs at the Edmonds School District board meeting. The district has to cut its budget by almost $12 million.Washington, USA - As the Seattle Times recently reported, school districts across our region are proposing deep cuts to music and other arts programming. These cuts would be foolhardy, and mountains of research exists to show why.
Study after study shows that students who participate in school music outperform their nonmusical counterparts in math, sciences and English. In one Canadian study conducted by the University of British Columbia involving 100,000 students, this was true even after researchers controlled for such things as gender, ethnicity and socio-economic status.
....(Gary Gibson is founder and Executive and Artistic Director of Steel Magic Northwest, a non-profit providing after-school steelband to youth in Edmonds and Kent, and adult community steelband in Edmonds.)
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