Music program still receiving support at Yosemite High School
BY TONY MOWRER
SPECIAL TO THE SIERRA STAR

This is the third in a series of four articles on the current crisis of music in public schools.

In spite of shrinking funding, the Yosemite Union High School District School Board and administration have shown great foresight and wisdom by continuing to be supportive of the high school's music program. Sadly, the same cannot be said of all school districts in Fresno and Madera counties, the state of California, or the country, at large. Nazareth, Pa. has recently cut an orchestral program that had grown from 30 to 175 students in a few short years. The reason--a stagnant budget. Something had to give. School officials in Stoneham, Mass. cut all fine arts classes at the elementary and middle school levels this summer when voters failed to approve a tax increase designed to offset roughly half of the district's $4.3 million budget shortfall. These are just a few of the casualties. What is really sad, however, is that it's not the programs and teachers who are the ones who will suffer. Rather, it is the students who will pay the big price.

Not only for the talented
The public seems to believe that the arts are only for the talented. One assumption is that if the arts are cut from a school, parents of talented children will see that their children receive training in the arts through private lessons. But, this brings about a terrible inequity. What of the children whose families cannot afford private lessons? And, what of the students who do not really have significant talent, but who find enjoyment and refuge in the arts and are, nonetheless, benefiting from a strong art’s program? A great deal of what art and music teachers do is expose kids to something they otherwise might not have known; to uncover talents that have been hidden and to develop talents that otherwise might lie dormant.

Richard Deasy, director of the Arts Education Partnership (AEP), a national coalition of arts, education, business, philanthropic, and government organizations committed to promoting arts education states, “The public believes the arts just benefit talented and gifted kids and there is a fear that pursuing a program in the arts will not get you a decent job or into college, and where you don't have strong public values for the arts, you don’t have them well represented in school.” (Source: http://www.nea.org/neatoday/04l1/coverstoiy.htm1) As a result of these attitudes, staffing for arts classes often lag far behind those for other subjects which means that even a minor cut can devastate an entire program. Cutting, or reducing music at the elementary level, for example, will have a dire effect on music programs at the high school level.

What could happen
The Fresno Unified School District is an example of what could happen in other districts when music is removed from the elementary schools.
In an earlier article, we explored the importance of music and the other arts in school. Now let's take an imaginary trip into a school where everyone is succeeding and the arts are elevated to a level of great importance.

The first thing you notice as you walk through the halls of this elementary school are the prints by the masters, Renoir, Monet, and others hanging alongside the charcoals of budding first grade masters. As you walk through this art museum, you hear music--classical music--piped through the speaker system. But, there is more.
Twice each week students from a local university come to the school and teach music to the students while also reinforcing concepts being taught by the regular classroom teacher. For example, kindergarten students review basic counting and number patterns with a visiting string quartet. Meanwhile, first grade students learn about the structure of a story and build their own language skills by writing their own operas.

In addition to working with the visiting music specialists, teachers meet monthly to work on ways to integrate the arts into their regular lessons and they collaborate with the music and art specialists so that the concepts being taught are included in the music and art lessons. For example, the music specialist reinforces literacy in the music lessons by reviewing the classroom literature in his lessons. He also helps with sentence structure and plot as students craft their own songs.

An imaginary school? No, it really exists. A school for the arts? Hardly! This is Howell Elementary School in Tucson, Ariz. The school meets nearly every criteria for an “at risk” school. About 80 percent of the student population receives free or reduced school lunch. About 50 percent of the student population are considered English-language learners. Most of the students arrive at the school with a limited vocabulary and poor auditory skills. In her first year as Howell Elementary’s principal, Jan Vesely’s students struggled to score at the 40’ percentile on the Stanford Achievement Test, a national math and reading exam. At the end of the first year of the program implemented by Vesely, Opening Minds through the Arts (OMA), the first-grade students scored in the 80’ percentile.

More than test scores
But test scores present only part of the story. Once OMA was implemented, the school experienced fewer behavioral problems (this results in lower costs), attendance has improved (this results in greater funding), and the students arrive at school more focused and ready to learn (this results in higher test scores). In addition, the program provides an additional avenue for students learning English. Everyone wins! (Source:http://www.nea.org/neatoday/0411/coverstory.html)
This is only one example of schools that are experiencing behavioral and academic improvement through a large-scale implementation of the arts. There are many others. But, these improvements do not happen just because the schools have included the arts in the classroom. Teachers and administrators may need to move away from traditional approaches in instruction in order to realize these results. In recent years, teachers have been forced to turn to prescribed instructional programs and a “drill and kill” approach in order to improve test scores. While test scores have risen, there is some reason to question whether real learning has taken place. Wouldn’t it be great for a person to become a well-rounded individual while also doing well on the high-stakes tests?

Tony Mowrer is in his third year at Yosemite High School and holds a Ph.D in music education from Temple University.

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