Essay in the Wall Street Journal by Joanne Lipman
“American education is in perpetual crisis. Our students are falling ever farther behind their peers in the rest of the world. Learning disabilities have reached epidemic proportions, affecting as many as one in five of our children. Illiteracy costs American businesses $80 billion a year.
Many solutions have been tried, but few have succeeded. So I propose a different approach: music training. A growing body of evidence suggests that music could trump many of the much more expensive “fixes” that we have thrown at the education system. (….)
New research provides some intriguing answers. Music is no cure-all, nor is it likely to turn your child into a Nobel Prize winner. But there is compelling evidence that it can boost children’s academic performance and help fix some of our schools’ most intractable problems.
- Music raises your IQ.
- Music training can reduce the academic gap between rich and poor districts.
- Music training does more than sports, theater or dance to improve key academic skills.
- Music can be an inexpensive early screening tool for reading disabilities.
- Music literally expands your brain. “
Read the whole essay: http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-musical-fix-for-american-schools-1412954652