Students Schooled in Arts Have Higher Test Scores, Study Finds

Schools have been giving the arts the ax since the late 1970s, when belt-tightening and a renewed emphasis on the basics began to edge arts classes out of the curriculum. But a new study suggests that teaching about music and other art forms ought to be as fundamental as the three Rs.

UCLA professor James S. Catterall analyzed the academic achievement of 6,500 poor students whose standardized test scores were reported to a federal database called the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988. He found that by the time these students were in the 10th grade, 41.4% of those who had taken arts courses scored in the top half, contrasted with only 25% of those who had minimal arts experience. The arts students also were more proficient readers and watched less television.