I'm one of those folks who believes that music and arts should be considered essential parts of a good education. Obviously, reading and math are vital, but not to the exclusion of other important subjects.

This used to be called a "Liberal Arts Education."  Grammar, Rhetoric, Logic, Geometry, Arithmetic, Music, and Astronomy -- the seven founding pillars. 

Personally, I believe there are no subjects more important in Early Childhood Education than Music and PE. 

You know, everyone says that, but I've never known a kid to have a crush on me.  They may have... who knows?... I've just never been aware of it.  (I mean, I remember the way I used to crush on my high school football coach's ass, but I didn't think he knew...)

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I think you pretty much just answered your own question there didn't you?

I remember I had a MAD crush on my junior high PE teacher Coach Jones, very clean cut young Peter Gallagher type of guy. 

But my first crush was on David Naughton bouncing around in those tight jeans in the original Dr. Pepper commericals.

Thankfully, there has been a shift in physical education in the past 10-15 years or so. PE classes now focus more on teaching physical fitness and stressing individual accomplishment (i.e. How do I get better?) rather than focusing on competitive sports where kids get compared to each other. That's certainly the trend, and I think it's a good one.

Of course, it came far too late for most of us (me included). But at least there's progress.

Thank you, Bruce -- you took my point.

In Early Childhood, PE is much more than sports.  Learning to judge distance, to cross the median line (perhaps the most important thing), to gallop, to skip, to run, to throw.  The physical being develops as the brain does.  BOTH must be nurtured.