We have likely all heard of the so-called "Mozart Effect," the claim that listening to music increases intelligence. While the often-cited 1993 study never actually claimed such a profound conclusion, the resultant publicity focused the nation's attention on the evidence of music's positive effect on various types of cognitive skills. Such an effect is desperately needed. The National Center for Education Statistics released in March 2010 the "Nation's Report Card: Reading 2009," which examines the literacy skills of our nation's fourth- and eighth-grade students. The results are sobering. Only 33% of students scored at or above Proficient, while 33% scored below Basic. For Black and Hispanic public-school children, the situation is much more dire: just 15% and 16% (respectively) scored at or above Proficient, while over half, 53% and 52% (respectively), scored below Basic. We must do better, and we can. The last two decades have seen an explosion of research concerning the effects of musical training on brain development: how it creates new neural networks, strengthens existing ones, and strengthens the synaptic connections. All the research supports the notion that early music training can be a critical component in the development of verbal, reading, comprehension, mathematical, and spatial-temporal reasoning skills in children, thus providing solid evidence for fully integrating music as a core component of early childhood education. (Contains 74 footnotes and 9 tables.)