Research by the Center for Arts in the Basic Curriculum indicates that when a school devotes more than 25 percent of its school day to the arts, students perform with academically superior abilities. A recent study with preschool children found that six months of music training significantly improved spatial reasoning. A public school kindergarten study showed that children's spatial reasoning improved 65 percent following 8 months of classroom keyboard instruction. Children receiving no music lessons scored 46 percent lower than the music group. 70 percent of 10th graders with a high involvement in the arts scored in the top 2 quartiles in standardized reading tests compared to 45 percent of students with low arts involvement.
Similar percentages hold for tests in history, citizenship and geography.