Music to our ears: PSUSD Foundation donates keyboards to local schools
Following a three-year fundraising campaign, The Foundation for Palm Springs Unified School District announced March 22 that it had donated Casio CTS200 keyboards to every elementary school music classroom in the district.
Which means local fifth graders now have access to one of 300 state-of-the-art electronic keyboards.
Offering music education in American schools has long been a tenuous prospect, one frequently savaged by lean budgets.
“The arts, as we know, are often challenged when budget cuts are on the horizon,” said Foundation Director Ellen Goodman via email, “and this is a thrilling moment for our students.”
There have been numerous studies that show playing a musical instrument helps develop countless skills, including cognitive ones that boost academic scores.
“Music really is a work-out for young minds,” said Dr. John Iversen, a neuroscientist at the University of
California San Diego. “The act of learning music and performing coordinates movements, hearing, vision and memory in real time, creating new neural pathways in the brain.”
In fact, a 2014 study from Northwestern University revealed that in as little as two years, children who learn a musical instrument experience biological brain changes that make it easier for sound to get into the brain and leads to better neural processing. Other research from the University of Southern California found that music instruction helps grow critical brain areas involved with reading ability, language development, speech perception and brain memory.
Research from the University of Kansas has shown that kids who take music lessons often have higher grade point averages and higher scores on standardized tests in math, science, and reading comprehension as compared to peers who don’t study music.
“Improving academic achievement is more critical than ever,” Goodman said. “The arts can help us. We need creativity to help regain lost ground. … The life lessons and social bonds built through music extend far beyond the practice room and performances.”
As the nonprofit arm of the Palm Springs Unified School District, the foundation “helps close gaps in public and state funding by providing a sustainable stream of private-sector funds to support 20,000 students at 28 schools in 6 cities,” according to its website.
To learn more or to make a donation, visit psusdfoundation.net.