Young people who consistently participate in comprehensive, sequential, and rigorous arts programs are:

- 4 times more likely to be recognized for academic achievement

- 3 times more likely to be elected to class office within their schools

- 4 times more likely to participate in a math and science fair

- 3 times more likely to win an award for school attendance

- 4 times more likely to win an award for writing an essay or poem. 

Source: Americans for the Arts (www.artsusa.org).  

The arts provide children with: 

- different ways to process information and express their knowledge

- the ability to think creatively in areas like math and science

- the ability to be independent and collaboration skills

(source: Young Audiences, Inc. www.youngaudiences.org)

The arts also:

- teach children to make good judgments about qualitative relationships.  

- celebrate multiple perspectives - showing students that there are many ways to see and interpret the world

- make it clear that neither words in their literal form nor numbers exhaust what we can know.  The limits of our language do not
define the limits of our cognition. 

- help children learn to say what cannot be said.  They must learn to reach into their poetic capacities to find the words to describe how
the work of art makes them feel.

(source: National Art Education Association website - www.naea-reston.org/tenlessons.html  From Elliot Eisner's book: The Arts and the Creation of Mind)