I wanted to be a music educator in college for a few years.  That is, until I realized how tough this job is.  Although standardizing is not the answer, it was difficult thinking about how to design a curriculum for music students at completely different levels—and with completely different musical vocabularies. Oftentimes, like in other subjects, music programs can be considered good or bad based on the level of the students, but unlike other subjects, a music program’s worth is determined on a subjective, performance based set of criteria.  In other words, if little Suzie blows her role in Annie, your program might be cut.

As we know, the most important issue in education today is how to attract the highest achieving or the most qualified college graduates to the lowest achieving public schools. Currently, this problem is a vicious cycle. Looking only at basic curriculum, this is a problem because poor achieving students who score insufficiently on standardized tests lead to less federal funding and thus, lower teacher bonuses. On his blog called Our Education: A Million Voices, One Right, a St. Louis intercity school teacher says -“poor and minority children are twice as likely to be taught by an inexperienced teacher than their counterparts in nice suburban schools.”

This problem is even worse in music education. If inadequate music teachers don’t produce obvious results in music programs, music programs can be cut. For example, if a high school choir isn’t recognized in some capacity by the administration or community, the administration can see a music program as a poor investment of limited funds. Compounding this, it is even harder to standardize and judge a music programs than it is to judge other curricula because there is no national test for students. Therefore, administrations have little or no standard on which to set a music curriculum so there are more problems judging whether or not a music program is adequate or how to fix that program.

Potential solutions to this problem involve getting the best teachers to the low achieving schools by rewarding them with more incentives for teaching there. One solution would involve rewarding the highest performing teachers by having them teach in the lowest achieving school districts for more money. This would give more money to the highest achieving teachers and improve the quality of the school. Another solution is having the top college graduates teach in the lowest achieving school districts like in the Teach for America program. This gives young college graduates needed teaching experience and improves the quality of the schools so perhaps teachers would actually want to teach there and continue teaching there. Again, this problem is harder for music programs because it is harder to judge a good music teacher.

A huge problem in education today is getting the best teachers to the lowest achieving schools in order to improve those schools. Music programs are especially in jeopardy with these inadequate teachers because music program funding is generally considered outside of basic learning skills. It is such a shame to see art and music programs cut.  Sometimes extracurricular classes are the only passion that students have--or will ever have for that matter--and they see no reason to do well in their other classes, or to come to school at all, without these programs. Sports are a big incentive for lots of our students, yes, but their budgets never seem to be in jeopardy. Creative children shouldn’t be punished for something that is beyond their control—art and music are their passions the way sports are the passion for some. 

This will always be a problem in American education until Americans realize that education is for the betterment of the whole person—the humanistic model—rather than to churn out identical earning machines.  Until then, music and the arts will never be out of the woods in ensuring that their budgets will not be eliminated.