Public School Music Research Paper

1301.703
21 July. 2010

Sustaining the Song: Public School Music Programs Whether teaching a traditional folk song to village children on a lonely Caribbean island or rehearsing for a concert in a music hall buzzing with excitement, it is hard to dispute that music education has played an essential part in nearly every culture for centuries. Today, the very music that we so love is endangered of becoming extinct in our public schools. So before the last sorrowful note wanes hopelessly throughout abandoned music rooms across our continent, we must resolve with urgent fervor to further foster and finance music programs in public schools, in hopes that humanity’s rich, cultural heritage of music may be sustained into future generations.
Since 1993, when legislators imposed revenue caps on public schools, school districts have been forced to make some hard decisions about ways they can cut back spending. Music and art programs were usually among the first to receive severe blows (Hurley 1). Over the years the importance of studying music has taken a back seat to so called core subjects. These core subjects are nearly immune to revenue caps and have become bases for critical assessments, “yet in the vast majority of primary-school settings, education in the arts is given very little time or left out altogether” (Peronne 1). Sadly, it seems that the cancerous, fund-draining cell has spread throughout cities and states from Maine to the borders of Mexico. Contrary to the National String Project Consortium’s poll on increasing string students, they have also found that ”66 percent of programs had reduced funding between the 2003 and 2008 academic years” (Fate 1). Schools are being blindsided by the erasing of funds from budget white-boards. Some administrations have even admitted that “the high cost of music instruction proved too much to bear in some school systems, especially those in which the rationale for arts education was not convincing to policy makers” (Mark 2). If money is not being allocated to music departments then where is
Advocacy for school music goes back at least to Lowell Mason, who persuaded the Boston School Committee to include music as a curricular subject in 1838...[later] boards of education began to accept the threefold rationale advocated in Boston in 1838—music as intellectually, morally, and physically good for children (Mark 1). Advocacy for music education has increased in recent decades and is steadily advancing in the effort to regain control of dwindling funds. Fortunately, professional arts education organizations, especially MENC [The National Association for Music Education], were already becoming effective in communicating their stories to those responsible for allocating precious funds (Mark 2). The battle has gone from the courts into the streets. Some communities are indeed fighting back with the auction idea and bake sales to save art, music and other programs in their schools (Nelson 1). Although many programs are taking a back seat to other subjects, defenders of music are committed in seeing lasting change happen. By providing key information to those in government, school administration, and the general community, music education advocates have gained recognition for music as part of the core curriculum (Mark 1). Because of the pressures from the outcry of supporters “the federal government established the National Standards for Arts Education” (Mark 2).