Connecting the Dots

This excerpt is from the article "Connecting The Dots" in the Sunday, April 26, 2009 Macon Telegraph newspaper. The article in its entirety can be found at the following link http://www.macon.com/151/story/694214.html.

I believe the answer why all students (traditional, MYP, IB, etc.) need to be offered accessible opportunities to music education is apparent once again in this article.By 4:45 p.m., I was headed northbound on I-75 for the Student Teacher Achievement Recognition (STAR) banquet, sponsored by the Professional Association of Georgia Educators Foundation. As chairman of the foundation, I'm supposed to be in the receiving line to greet STAR students and their teachers by 6:15 p.m. If anyone asks, I followed the flow of traffic. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.I won't go into much detail, but the banquet was held at the Buckhead Hotel Atlanta and it's undergoing renovations. It's right across Lenox Road from Lenox Square, but the hotel's sign was nowhere in sight. Fill in the blanks, please.

I missed the receiving line portion of my duties. The program honors 21 region winners who come from throughout the state. Large, medium and small systems are represented. The Region 6, Middle Georgia, STAR student is Brandon Munda from Houston County High School. His STAR teacher is Laura Byrd. He joined 20 of the brightest students in the state, but only one could be the 2009 STAR student, who turned out to be Annie Wang, from George Walton High School in Cobb County. The runner-up is Emily Bragg from Columbia County's Greenbrier High School.During the program, WSB reporter Jeff Dore interviewed each student. Their interests ranged from electronic engineering to math and philosophy to political science to Arabic and international relations.For those Georgia Tech fans, more of the STAR students -- five -- were headed to Yellow Jacket land than anywhere else. Yale and Harvard claimed three apiece, followed by Brown, Dartmouth, Princeton, Emory, Auburn, UGA and Indiana University.

Granted, these students are brilliant, but what would you guess linked them together? Was it their math skills? These students shared one common trait. All 21 were proficient musicians. Hmmm. Why are the first things cut music and art? The data linking high educational achievement and the arts is miles long. Why do we not get it? I would bet this class of STAR students is not unlike the 50 classes that preceded them. Students obviously connect the dots between achievement and the arts. Why can't we? That's a question even this group of bright students are unable to answer, because no matter your angle of approach, it doesn't make sense.

Charles E. Richardson is the Telegraph's editorial page editor. He can be reached at 478-744-4342 or via e-mail at: crichardson@macon.com.