Edward Asked: "To end with a question (or two): What role should the arts play in education? And does music education actually improve academic success, or does it merely coincide with a higher quality education within a district that can afford such luxuries?"
I shall begin with the latter which will, I think, segue nicely to an answer for the former.
I think, obviously, that the answer to your question is neither exclusively one nor the other. Yes, there is more to this coincidence than proponents of music education like to admit, but I think there is legitimate, though I know not to what degree, benefits to students who are receiving or did receive, a musical education. Although, this is not restricted to music and applies, I think, to nigh all the arts.
Queue Segue
While I do not think the arts are strictly necessary to education, they are beneficial enough to demand attention within a quality system of education. The benefits of music (I shall speak of music as my example but I mean, for the remainder of this post, all arts) are twofold:
As a stand alone subject in its own right, music offers rare insights into subjects such as mathematics and allows for unique experiences with patterns and different scientific principles.
Secondly, and I think more importantly, music can provide mental solace. Too often, I think, do schools forgo consideration of psychological health and of pleasure. An unhappy student is rarely a good student. It may be worth the time to have a segment of a day devoted to something that makes the students happy, provides them with a reprieve. Music may serve as just such a reprieve.
Question: Neglecting, for the sake of this hypothetical, the numerous and potent direct education merits of music, are its mental ramifications enough to render it a practical and worthy endeavor of schools?
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