MUSIC

Musical Flat Notes: South Dakota has the best music teacher-student ratio in the U.S. with one teacher for every 151 students, while California ranks last with one teacher per every 1,535 students. These are among statistics flagged by the National Commission on Music Education to stress the serious decline of music and arts education in U.S. schools. In a report issued this week in Washington, the commission said it is time “to destroy the myth that education in music and the other arts is mere ‘curricular icing,’ not as important as reading, mathematics and the physical and social sciences.”