Singing the Praises of a Talent Program : Education: Teachers find that special instruction in the arts is unexpectedly improving student grades.

It’s 4.30 p.m. From inside the fourth-floor auditorium of P.S. 130 in the Ft. Hamilton section of Brooklyn comes the muffled sound of a 15-piece percussion band.

World Beat 130 is rehearsing for its next gig: a black-tie affair at the Brooklyn borough president’s office.

Anthony Lowe, the band’s 11-year-old drummer, has mixed feelings.

“I’m a little nervous, a little frustrated, a little happy, a little sad,” he said. “Most of all I’m afraid someone will mess up.”

Anthony’s perfectionism is more characteristic of a seasoned professional than of a devil-may-care school kid, but World Beat 130 is no ordinary school band.

It is the jewel in the crown of a three-year research program piloted in two Brooklyn schools: this one and P.S. 27 in Red Hook.

The program, “Talent Beyond Words,” was initiated by ArtsConnection, a New York City arts-in-education organization, with the aid of a $900,000 government grant.

It was designed to identify and nurture the creative potential of children from low socio-economic backgrounds, using measures other than standardized test scores.

“If you’re poor or you live in the inner cities, the likelihood that you’ll be identified as gifted or talented is extremely remote,” said Steven Tennen, executive director of ArtsConnection.

Researchers say the program could provide educators with a new model for evaluating the talents of at-risk elementary school children.

Children were selected for the program based on a set of criteria created by Dr. Joseph Renzulli, director of the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented in Connecticut.

Over a seven-week period, a panel of five evaluators--two artists, one classroom teacher, one member of ArtsConnection and one rotating outside expert--monitored 369 third-graders in specially held dance and music workshops in the two schools.

Each panel member kept a chart on which he or she evaluated the children for artistic ability.

They measured physical control, concentration, memory and recall, rhythmic sense, improvisation abilities, expressiveness, coordination, agility and perseverance. A total of 98 children were finally selected for the program.

“What we found is that kids who teachers thought of as most troublesome, the extra-energy kids, the ones with behavior problems--they were the ones most often selected,” said David Pleasant, a professional musician who teaches the program’s music workshops at P.S. 130.

Few had ever played an instrument or stepped onto a dance floor before. Now they are capable of participating in advanced dance classes or improvising complex rhythms on a variety of percussive instruments, including xylophones, congas, bongos, timpanis and snare drums.

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What has surprised the organizers, however, is not the children’s rapid artistic progress, but the fact that nearly 60% of those who entered the program with below average reading and math scores improved over the three-year period--some dramatically, some moderately.

“These results are not at all what we expected,” said Jessica Nicoll, dance instructor at P.S. 27.

“We always hoped test scores would go up, but what we’ve found is that the kids who were most at risk showed the greatest improvement. Nobody has ever drawn that kind of documented conclusion before.”

Children who entered the program with average or above-average test scores showed no significant change.

At this stage, the researchers have not traced the exact relationship between arts training and improved test scores for at-risk kids.

“I don’t believe in any direct connection between the two,” said Barry Oreck, the program’s director. “It’s more that the change in attitude of the children, and the changed expectations of them by their teachers, carries over to other areas.”

The mere fact of being selected for the program was a morale booster. “These kids had never been held up as a model for anything in their lives,” said Nicoll.

The research data on the program, due to be presented to the U.S. Department of Education next year, gives statistical substance to what many in the arts community have sensed intuitively for years--that arts training can have a positive effect on a child’s entire academic performance.

“The standard methods of raising test scores are obviously not working,” said Nicoll. “Dance and music involve problem solving. They involve discipline, focus, concentration. These are all skills that are needed to perform well in other areas. The key is to tap into them.”

The living proof of the program’s success is in World Beat 130, which is developing something of a name for itself. Among other engagements, the band is to appear at the 92nd Street Y. Their teacher and bandleader has no doubt about their potential.

“It’s obvious they’re going to be fantastic musicians, and some will be phenomenal,” Pleasant said.