--Original published at Matt's College Blog
While I can’t speak on whether the Mozart effect has any real impact on the intelligence of infants, I do think that the Governer, Zell Miller, tried to do the right thing. He believed there was a cheap, easy way to improve the future lives of thousands of people, something we look for every day, and he executed on his idea. I do not, however, think his decision was a good one. The decision to spend over $100,000 in taxpayers money based on a belief in some shaky theory which needs more thorough testing, is not one which should be taken lightly. The better option would have been to fund a major study into the Mozart effect to see if there was any real, measurable influence on the intelligence of children who had listened to Mozart as an infant as opposed to those who did not. This would have enabled the state to both save money and make an informed decision about the proposed budget.
Another option, rather than funding the study, could have been to allocate those funds to schools directly, providing new materials and other things students, especially those of low income families, needed to grow and learn. Instead of spending $105K on Mozart CD’s and cassettes, spend those funds on textbooks, meal programs, playgrounds, transportation, and classroom supplies. The funds could have been allocated to teacher’s paychecks, or to hiring new teachers with more experience to add to the classrooms. Funding the arts programs, music classes, etc. If he though listening to Mozart would make kids smarter, he could have funded schools to teach people to play Mozart!