to Succeed in a Global Economy

In June, OMEA President Jeff Simmons met with Oregon Congressmen as a part of NAfME Music Education Week in Washington DC. One result of these meetings was an invitation to participate and present at the July 15th STEM and ESEA Roundtable Education discussion with Senator Merkley in Portland. Below is an abstract of the written testimony submitted to the Senate Health and Human Services committee which is the overseeing group regarding the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind.

In order to succeed in a competitive and evolving workplace tomorrow, students need to be taught today the skills of collaboration, creation, innovation, and mastery through process. In order for our students to shift into a truly global workforce, they need the skills of the textbooks and beyond. The students need to be able to perform the tasks of their field, while simultaneously applying their mastery to new and innovative solutions to as yet unknown situations and goals.

The arts are a subject that teaches students creative applications of mastered skills.

It is through creativity and work towards mastery that the whole brain, and thus the whole child, is fully developed. It is through the applications of learned skills in alternative formats that development is most profound in students. Just as a baby learns to construct with building blocks, adults and students need the same tools and opportunities to be able to provide solutions to everyday as well as monumental challenges.

In music, one must constantly read and analyze symbols and languages to infer the meanings and intentions on the road to creation. Just as in the sciences, music teaches the path to discovery through analysis and interpretation. Music demands a step further in the process, that of creation. It is this additional process that makes music a vital skill for our students.

Music education is not an elective subject, but rather the culminating subject, connecting the science, reading, and mathematical skills of the rest of the school curriculum together into one application of creation and mastery. Students that participate in music education classes out perform students in all other subject areas, even those that the students specialize in. In his research of “The Comparative Academic Abilities of Students in Education and in Other Areas of a Multifocus University,” Peter H. Wood drew the conclusion that students studying in an academic area and participating in music creation will outscore those with academic exclusivity.

As Congress begins to review the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, it is vital to maintain that the arts remain listed as a core academic subject of a students’ education. Title IX, Part A, Sec. 9101 (11.). The exclusion of the Arts within this listing, could have the potentially unintended consequence of removing Arts education from the school curriculum to focus instead on the mandated subjects.

As the importance of minimum standards is emphasized by legislation, it is imperative to the students that access to Highly Qualified music instructors remain. Quite often students that excel in music classes, yet briefly struggle in another subject, are removed by administration from music class in order to more fully encompass that other subject. This leads to stagnation through saturation for the student. It is within the music class that their brain development is fully utilized to allow success in other academic areas.

Increased saturation of a subject does not assist the student in developing mental and physical cognitive skills beyond the task at hand, and quite often these students learn to despise the subject of saturation and frequently will leave the school system entirely.

It is also crucial that as ESEA, or the successor program, funding be made available for all core subjects. Music programs nationally have been casualties of lack of funding through the unintentional ambiguity of funds designations. If Congress were to state that Title I funding would be made available for music curricula, and that Title II funding would be made available to support teacher training, professional development in all core academic subjects. This would address the educational goals of traditionally disadvantaged schools and low-income and special needs students. A clarification of language to expressly allow funding for core academic areas would further ensure that students are receiving a complete education.

Schools and states are currently mandated to report math and reading scores in addition to graduation rates, the lack of accountability for reporting “all core subjects” has allowed schools at the state and local levels to self-define core subject offerings. When the accountability of reporting is removed, the pressure to offer all core subjects is also removed. It is due to the lack of music assessments that music education subject availability has been reduced.

A simple amendment of ESEA as follows would ensure the availability of core subject education to all students:

Amend Title I., Part A, Subpart 1 Basic Program Requirements, Sec. 1111(h) State Plans to require states to collect and report annually comprehensive information about the status and condition of all core academic subjects for which challenging academic standards apply. Such information should include student enrollment, pupil/teacher ratios, amount of instructional time, budget allocation, teacher subject certification, full time equivalent teacher load, or other such measures chosen by the state to be significant in the subject area.

ESEA has done many things well for the students of America. Many of the often overlooked demographics of students have been very well served by the language and protections of ESEA. The accountability and reporting standards have raised the achievement levels of many schools, and thus students, nationwide. While at first introduction, the attendance regulations of ESEA seemed stringent and poorly conceived; the long-term effects have students more regularly in school, and thus learning. To be able to assess what students are learning in the most rounded and developmentally effective methods will ensure that students leave the schools they are now attending in record numbers with a comprehensive and quality education.

There is no single program or curriculum to fit the needs of every student or community in America. There are however fundamental necessities, which will allow our students to grow and develop to the best of their abilities as the future leaders and innovators of the world. The whole child needs to become the primary focus of current and any future legislation.

Locally, it is a requirement of Bend LaPine schools that students entering the sixth grade enroll in a music class. While this is a late age to start an intensive music education curriculum, the reading, writing, math and science scores on both a state and a national test demonstrated higher skills than their peers as a result of their forces the inclusion in music classes.

To diminish the requirements and expectations of our students is to diminish our belief in their potential and future. However, educational legislation aimed at succeeding in a global economy needs to support the arts as a core subject area. We need to see every child in America as an intelligent and creative individual with unlimited potential, capable of mastery and creation. If we wish to once again be the America that all other nations look to as the standard for success and innovation.

To quote President John F. Kennedy:

—at Amherst College, October 26, 1963