..........what makes teaching music in the public schools so bad?



A friend of mine sent this article to all of us on the bandmasters listserv. It is exactly the reason that teaching an elective course such as band is becoming so very frustrating. You can always tell when things are going pretty well......the worthless administrator types try to re-invent the wheel; and when it doesn't seem to make much sense at all, they blame the changes on getting our kids ready for the global economy. And what always suffers? You got it - the arts courses. Not many administrators are smart enough to consider the worth of arts courses. Most of them are ex-coaches anyway. At any rate, read this article. I'm sure more PE and more foreign language is exactly what our kids need to get ready to compete in the global economy. This article has to do with the NC Public Schools



Middle-school students will have to take three years of foreign language starting next year, a new requirement that has some parents worried about the effect on arts education.
The foreign-language requirement, which will start with next year’s incoming sixth-graders, will take up one elective slot for all students. Another will be taken by a mandatory physical-education class, leaving two elective slots in which students can take classes in the arts, career and technology education and other subjects.
But students who want to participate in band or chorus in eighth grade will face a choice. Band and chorus classes meet for two elective periods in eighth grade. With the language and physical education electives, that will leave no time for band or chorus students to take electives in other subjects they are interested in.
School officials said they are still working out the details of the policy. Some students, such as those enrolled in study-skills classes, may be exempt from the requirement, Superintendent Don Martin said. Members of the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County school board will discuss the policy again at their retreat Tuesday.
School officials said that the new language requirement will help students earn high-school credits in foreign language and learn a skill that will be valuable in the global economy.
“One of the state-board goals - and as a result, our school-system goal - is graduating students who are prepared for a global economy, and with the way that society and the business world has changed, students have to have knowledge of a foreign language,” said Leslie Baldwin, the school system’s program specialist for foreign languages. “It doesn’t matter anymore whether a student is going to college or going straight on to the work force. These skills are needed.”
Parents, however, have their concerns.
Dee Oseroff-Varnell, the organizer of the group Forsyth Advocates for Musical Education and a mother of three high-school students, said she is concerned about the new foreign-language requirement.
“If they don’t have a choice, if it is going to be mandatory at the expense of some other classes they might want to take, I’m not sure I agree with that,” she said.
The Winston-Salem/Forsyth County school system is one of the few in the state that still teaches foreign language in its elementary schools. Students in third, fourth and fifth grade receive 90 minutes of instruction every week.
School officials said that by requiring middle-school students to take a foreign language, they will ensure that the skills that were learned in elementary school aren’t forgotten.
The requirement also takes advantage of a new state regulation. The State Board of Education changed its policies in May to allow students to get high-school credit for foreign-language classes they take in middle school, as long as the classes meet the requirements, said Helga Fasciano, the section chief with K-12 programs for foreign language.
“It is still up to each district to determine how they’re going to do that and whether they are going to do that,’’ Fasciano said. “Winston-Salem is being innovative in how they’re looking at that.”
At the high-school level, students are required to take two years of classes in the same foreign language if they are taking the university/college course of study.
Students who take foreign-language classes in middle school and earn high-school credit may free a slot in high school for an additional elective class. Taking the course in middle school also allows students, if they choose, to take an advanced language class in high school.
The school board has been debating the foreign-language requirement for middle schools for about a year. Some members, such as Jeannie Metcalf, have voiced concerns similar to Oseroff-Varnell’s.
“I don’t want kids to have to give up something they really want to do to take foreign language,” Metcalf said during a discussion at a school-board retreat earlier this month. Metcalf suggested that school officials look into alternative scheduling or different ways of teaching foreign language.
Other board members pointed out that research has shown that students learn language more easily when they’re young, so the middle-school requirement is a good idea.
“You absorb it so naturally and quickly,” board-member Elisabeth Motsinger said.
Board members have acknowledged the pressures that the language requirements will place on the arts, as have school officials and parents.
If middle-school students have to choose between taking band or two other electives in eighth grade, it’s possible that some will choose to skip the music class, which could end up hurting high-school bands, said Ian Hargis, the director of bands at Reynolds High School.
“I do think it will have a direct impact on enrollment,” Hargis said. “If they don’t have band every day at least in the eighth grade, it makes it very, very hard for us to have the quality high school bands that we’ve gotten used to.”
Middle-school music classes are important, he said.
“The middle-school teachers are the ones who really teach the kids how to play music,” Hargis said