Research and experience show overwhelmingly that partticipation in the arts can provide a powerful tool to engage youth and spark their curiosity and commitment.

Participation in Arts programs can:

• Reconnect kids to learning and education, and bring about the levels of sustained attention and motivation that students need to succeed in academics.
  
  
• Create community and foster positive peer relationships.
  
  
• Provide powerful tools to engage youth and spark their curiosity and commitment.
  
  
• Enhance thinking and problem solving skills.
  
  
• Set high standards of quality, success, and achievement.
  
  
• Provide opportunities to make tangible contributions to the group and the community and be recognized for those contributions.
  
  
• Promote constructive peer and mentor relations through teamwork, decision-making, and critique sessions.
  
  
• Create a working environment featuring clear roles and responsibilities.
  
  
• Allow risk-taking in a safe and supportive environment.
  
  
• Help students gain the sense of accomplishment and self-esteem they need to believe that they can succeed in school, AND in life.

Critical Links: Learning in the Arts and Student Academic and Social Development (2002)
The collection of research described in Critical Links: Learning in the Arts and Student Academic and Social Development (2002) finds that learning in the arts may be uniquely able to boost learning and achievement for young children, students from economically disadvantaged circumstances, and students needing remedial instruction.

Champions of Change: The Impact of the Arts on Learning (1999)
According to the Arts Education Partnership publication Champions of Change: The Impact of the Arts on Learning (1999), a compilation of studies on the impact of arts on learning, students who participate in the arts outperform their peers on virtually every measure. Researchers found that "sustained learning" in music and theater correlates to greater success in math and reading, and students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds see the greatest benefits. In fact, "learning in and through the arts can help 'level the playing field' for youngsters from disadvantaged circumstances," the researchers contended.

Third Space: When Learning Matters (2005)
A book by the Arts Education Partnership, Third Space: When Learning Matters (2005), finds that schools with large populations of students in economic poverty–often places of frustration and failure for students and teachers alike–can be transformed into vibrant and successful centers of learning and community life when the arts are infused into their culture and curriculum.

Learning, Arts, and the Brain (2008)
Cognitive neuroscientists at seven major universities have found strong links between arts education and cognitive development (e.g. thinking, problem solving, concept understanding, information processing and overall intelligence.) According to the Dana Consortium study, Learning, Arts, and the Brain (2008) children motivated in the arts develop attention skills and memory retrieval that also apply to other subject areas.
Instruction time for the arts is decreasing across the nation since implementation of No Child Left Behind (NCLB).



Gaining the Arts Advantage: Lessons from School Districts that Value Education (1999)

— that an arts education contributes significantly to improved critical thinking, problem posing, problem solving, and decision making;
— that, as with language and mathematics, the crux of an arts education involves the communication, manipulation, interpretation, and understanding of complex symbols;
— that developing fluency in artistic expression and understanding fosters higher-order thinking skills of analysis, synthesis, and evaluation;
— that the arts are multi-modal, addressing and fostering the multiple intelligences of students (spatial abilities, for example, develop through drawing and sculpture, mathematical- logical abilities through producing and listening to music, kinesthetic or physical abilities through dance, interpersonal skills through drama);

Arts education helps prepare a creative workforce
The Conference Board and Americans for the Arts, working with the American Association of School Administrators, surveyed business leaders and school superintendents and school leaders in 2007 to determine what skills and abilities are needed to be taught to demonstrate creativity.

— The results of this survey demonstrate how business executives have a growing appreciation that a particular set of abilities (such as creative writing, public speaking and original thought) in employees will be needed if the workforce is to be “innovative.” It also shows that school administrators recognize their role in preparing future workers for a creative economy, and many of their perceptions about which skills to teach are consistent with what employers look for in a creative individual.
— There is overwhelming consensus from superintendents (98%) and corporate leaders (96%) that “creativity is of increasing importance to the US workforce.” Of those corporate respondents looking for creative people, 85% said they were having difficulty finding qualified applicants with the creative characteristics they desired.
— When respondents were asked “which experiences or educational backgrounds would you consider an indicator of creativity?” The single most indicative educational background for both school and corporate respondents was the “Arts” (School 78%, Corporate 55%).