To Whom It May Concern:
For years now, the Music and Arts programs in schools have been fighting in a battle against other subject areas to keep their existent. In most cases it seems that when there is a budget cut that needs to take place, the first place school boards look is to the music and arts programs in their schools. When the members of these boards take a look at the programs in the school them see to focus on “cutting the fat off” or “trimming the edges,” to reinforce parts of the school budget. I feel school boards need to re-evaluate the process they go about when they ‘cut the fat.’
We all have been witness to the occasional bias inside our schools when it comes to one program benefiting more than another. Well this needs to come to a halt. A great and probably most upsetting example would be a football team who does not succeed season after season deserves to receive a budget for new uniforms, when the marching band of that high school is being denied the ability or the support to attend some of the United States largest parades in Georgia, New York and other cities of Pennsylvania from where they are invited to represent their area or state. This is one action of a school board that does not seem to be looking for the best imagine of the school, or school district.
With the amounts of research done showing how music helps create children to excel in other school subjects such as math and sciences, why are we not having our student enrolled in such courses? Our current curriculum focuses so much on the subject’s math and science, yet we are only required our students to take more of these classes, forcing them to understand not allowing them to enjoy their education, potentially causing some to fail. If our students are enrolled in music courses that help push for the increase of knowledge maybe our students would be more interested in those math and science course, allowing them to enjoy it and increase test scores, which is of course another big thing for all schools.
The children of our world are the future; if we do not put them on the course correctly then we have failed. There will be no chance to change that unless we begin as soon as possible. School boards need to strongly re-evaluate some decisions made, to correct and build a proficient curriculum.
Respectfully submitted,
Armond D. Walter