Why are the Arts So Important?

- Extensive research of arts education in the country consistently found higher levels of student involvement and educational achievement among students taking advanced arts courses.

- Students of the arts continue to outperform their non-arts peers on the Scholastics Assessment Test (SAT). According to the College Board, in 1995, SAT scores for students who studied the arts for more than four years were 59 points higher on verbal and 44 points higher on the math portion than students with no coursework or experience in the arts.

- An experimental group who spent 40 minutes a day for seven months learning how to recognize melodic and rhythmic elements of folk songs scored in the 88th percentile for reading scores, compared to a control group that scored in the 72nd percentile.

- Brain research shows that learning and performing music actually exercises the brain and strengthens the synapses between brain cells.

- The arts represent a form of thinking and a way of knowing that is both sensory and intellectual and is based in human imagination and judgment. Arts education trains students in complex thinking.

- The arts provide unique ways of reaching students who may not access knowledge as readily through language and mathematics alone. Instruction in the arts is one of the best ways in which to involve the different modes of learning.

- Strong cognitive links exist between the arts and the sciences including the ability to explore new concepts and associations, to understand abstract ideas, to build models and to recognize patterns.

- Arts education contributes to student learning and achievement by enhancing motivation, self-discipline and understanding of others, appreciation of diversity, a positive school climate and preparation for the world of work.

- The U.S. Department of Labor concluded that arts education helps students make important advances in the core competencies needed for employment, including creative thinking, problem solving, exercise of individual responsibility, sociability and self-esteem.

- Business is booming throughout the visual effects industry that currently employs numerous digital artists in Georgia, and this number is expected to increase dramatically in coming years.