ADVOCACY TOP TEN 2000

Versatile, Concise Music Advocacy Facts
Provided by the Selmer Company

Music Advocacy's Top Ten for Students

1. A 2000 Georgia Tech study indicates that a student who participates in a least one elective music course is 4.5 times more likely to stay in college than the general student population.
   - Dr. Denise C. Gardner, Effects of Music Courses on Retention, Georgia Tech, 2000. 2.

2. On the 1999 SAT, music students continued to outperform their non-arts peers, scoring 61 points higher on the verbal portion and 42 points higher on the math portion of the exam.
   - Steven M. Demorest and Steven J. Morrison, "Does Music Make you Smarter?, Music Educators Journal, September, 2000.

3. Students who participate in All-State ensembles consistently score over 200 points higher on the SAT than non-music students. This figure indicates that students can pursue excellence in music while also excelling academically.
   - Texas Music Educators Association, 1988-1996.

4. Students with good rhythmic performance ability can more easily detect and differentiate between patterns in math, music, science, and the visual arts.
   - "Rhythm seen as key to man's evolutionary development," TCAMS Professional Resource Center, 2000.

5. Students in arts programs are more likely to try new things, and they can better express their own ideas to friends, teachers, and parents.
   - Champions of Change, the President's Council on the Arts and Humanities, 1999.

6. College students majoring in music achieve scores higher than students of all other majors on college reading exams.
   - Carl Hartman, "Arts May Improve Students' Grades," The Associated Press, October, 1999.

7. Music student demonstrate less test anxiety and performance anxiety than students who do not study music.
   - "College-Age Musicians Emotionally healthier than non-Musician Counterparts," Houston Chronicle, 1998.

8. The average scores achieved by music students on the 1999 SAT increased for every year of musical study. This same trend was found in SAT scores of previous years.
   - Steven M. Demorest and Steven J. Morrison, "Does Music make You Smarter?," Music Educators Journal, September, 2000.

9. A majority of the engineers and technical designers in Silicon Valley are also practicing musicians.
   - The Case for Sequential Music Education in the Core Curriculum of the Public Schools, Center for the Arts in the Basic Curriculum, 1997.

10. Nine out of ten people with instrumental music experience are glad that they have learned to play an instrument.
    - "Music Ed Survey," Giles Communications, 2000.