Music at Risk

"Music is a language. It speaks. If my students could speak as well - I would be as content as you are! The best speaking students are those who speak from the heart. Those students do well because their learning is the result of loving."

-Leon Pearson, French teacher

"NCLB is rapidly pushing “frills” out of the curriculum. Has research now established that art, music, physical activity and so on have nothing to do with scientific and mathematical reasoning ability?"

-Marion Brady.

Among its many failings the most frightful effect of NCLB is its impact on the arts. As a music teacher of 33 years, I've always assumed that my job was at risk and entirely dependent on the benevolence of the School Board and Board of Supervisors. It was always my strategy to make my music program such an institution and so much a part of the core of the curriculum that my job would never be jeopardized. While I can never say that my job was in any real jeopardy, I never achieved my goal of become an essential part of the wider school program. As testing and faux rigor became more and more of an emphasis in my school, piece after piece of my music program was stripped away. Student performances became limited in size and scope, performing groups curtailed, and access to students became more and more difficult. I finally took my early retirement instead of retrenching yet again in the face of cuts to the program and even more restrictions on access to students.

And just this week, current events from Illinois..

"It's simple how No Child Left Behind affects my students: They will be without the visual arts, or music starting with the 2006-07 school year. Our district had to make budget cuts of $400,000. The only fine arts teacher left standing is the band instructor."

-Charlotte Combs, an Illinois Art Teacher

I fear that across the country, arts programs that were already stressed to the point of breaking in what has always been a "hard sell" environment will now simply disappear in the wake of high stakes testing. It's happening in bits and pieces, a slowly crumbling dyke holding back the flood of high minded education reform with testing as its centerpiece. Music will never die, but it might not be a part of education. Lowell Mason's legacy is in danger. Quality education is at stake. Reform is possible. Testing is only a small part of accountability. Music and the arts are essential in education

"for in the patterns of music and all the arts are the keys to learning."

-Plato