Music education advocates struggle to retain programs

By Craig Colgan

3/19/02 – President Bush's 2003 budget, which arrived Feb. 4, surprised K-12 music supporters because a popular federal program had been targeted for elimination.

Arts in Education, with $30 million appropriated for the 2002 fiscal year, would be "zeroed out" in the President's plan. While congressional appropriators might very well choose to retain funding for this program, music advocates say whatever is proposed at the federal level sends powerful signals all the way to junior high band rehearsal halls.

Music education leaders have been steadily solidifying their case to schools boards and superintendents over the last decade, slowly building momentum as they seek to make music a valuable part of the curriculum and school life–and not just an extracurriculur activity.

To support their case, advocates point to research results reinforced in the 1990s showing that music instruction strengthens students' performance in many other academic areas.

Threats to cut funding in these programs, while always present, seem to have leveled off. A survey by The Instrumentalist magazine reveals that school music programs in 2001 were operating on 11 percent more money than the year before. It also found that fund raising in support of school music programs was up 15 percent.

The survey reported that 53 percent of all high schools had more funds for music than the previous year, 12 percent had less, and 35 percent reported no change.

The budget axe

But that survey might be misleading by overrepresenting wealthier schools, says Mike Blakeslee, deputy executive director of an organization known as MENC: the National Association for Music Education. He says whenever states face serious budget stress, music programs tend to face the chopping block.

"I don't think the full force of this has hit yet," Blakeslee says, referring to severe budget cutbacks in many states, which he believes will undoubtedly affect school arts programs.

One tactic that some arts advocates are pursuing in an effort to solidify or even expand music and other arts programs is to support measures that mandate or recommend assessment. The thinking is that if the law mandates–or district policy strongly encourages–schools to assess arts and music skills, then those programs must be kept in place and continually strengthened.

But that idea might have drawbacks. In the state of Washington, the arts component for the state's high-stakes test is scheduled to begin in 2008 for eighth and 10th graders, and the following year for fifth graders.

While arts and music advocates supported the assessment requirement, the result might be a larger burden on school districts, which will now be under a stronger requirement to have these programs installed and regularly upgraded. And that means higher costs.

Focus on fund raising

The study by The Instrumentalist pointed to a large number of band and school music directors who focus much of their energy on fund raising to support their programs. Having this structure in place can be a benefit in tough financial times, since many schools are precluded from raising money to support their reading programs or pay teacher salaries. But the larger goal is to see that music programs are strongly anchored in the core curriculum.

"If you are a music teacher who has to do fund raising, you are spending valuable time when you should be focused on lesson plans or tutoring students," Blakeslee says. "If funds raised that way pay for extras, that is fine. If they are used to pay for essential parts of the curriculum, that is not good."

In Florida, which is facing a serious budget crisis, one factor that is making advocacy for music education more difficult is the trend in many school districts to move most budget decision-making to the building level.

Monitoring the health of public school music programs by connecting with school districts and speaking to school boards is doable, says June Hinckley, supervisor of music for the Florida department of education. But if the trend continues, the new challenge for music advocates will be developing ways to somehow reach out to each principal in a state with 3,000 public schools.

State assessments

Music educators in Florida were pleased when the arts were included in the state's education standards adopted in 1996.

"Including us makes us players now," Hinckley says. "It says that music programs in schools are about more than a teacher going into a classroom and singing songs. We teach evaluation skills, cultural connections, and history. The focus now is to integrate music education into the entire curriculum and to take advantage of the learning that happens when you have strong arts programs in schools."

Hinckley says music education is most vulnerable at the elementary level. When district budgets must be cut, she suggests saving at least a shred of the program. "Cutting back is always preferable to eliminating music programs, because building a program from scratch is so difficult," Hinckley says. "The wolf is always at the door for music education."

Florida has no plans to require arts and music education to be part of the statewide assessment system. But content on those tests may come from arts education. Music education advocates will soon descend on Florida's state legislature to make their case, Hinckley says.

Advocates in other states continue to seek new ways to ensure survival of music programs.

In 2001, New Mexico became the latest state to approve a law that would allow marching band to count as a physical education credit for high school students. The bill's supporters called it significant because it would allow students more time in their school schedules for other music classes.

In Connecticut, many districts choose not to assess the arts, but they can include the arts in their basic skills assessments, which should be in place for the graduating class of 2006.

"Assessment gives schools permission to create broader music and arts programs, but assessment is not the whole answer," says Scott Shuler, arts education specialist in Connecticut's education department. "I tell arts educators that, unlike teachers in most other disciplines, they have to be as much adult educators as student educators. Their job is to help inform a public that does not always understand that arts are essential."

"Assessment is one tool," Shuler says. "But another is creating a very child-centered program and communicating with school administrators and school boards what resources are needed."