The move to include art and design in the push to advance science, engineering, and math is not just a “feel-good” move. It’s critical to the future economy and families’ standard of living. Researchers are finding that although children’s IQ scores have been steadily rising, results on the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking—a key measure of creativity—have been on the decline since 1990, just as the demand for more creative thinkers is rising. In a 2010 IBM survey, 1,500 CEOs identified creativity as a top leadership competency of the future.

“Les Robots-Music,” by Sascha Pohflepp

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As Enrico Moretti in his book, “The New Geography of Jobs,” notes, for the first time in history, “the factor that is scarce is not physical capital, but creativity.” The decline is driving the divergence in economies and in families’ wallets. The majority of a product’s value today, he writes, comes from its original idea, not the manufacturing of it. The latter can be done cheaply almost anywhere else, but the “good” jobs lie in innovation, design, and engineering.