They Always Beat Up the Music Dept.

[Don Higdon]

Faced with a huge budget deficit, New Jersey's cutting everywhere, including schools. The local boards, in turn, have to cut the school budgets.
Yesterday, the City of Paterson (population 150,000) abolished the jobs of 50 music teachers, i.e., the entire music department.
So what else is new?

[Herbie 80's]

Holy crap. So much for music education.

[Joshua]

I've seen this before, when I worked at a Music Shop in the early 90s that was primarily a woodwind and brass shop (lotsa band students).

Simply awful decision imo...

[Marcus Johnson]

No surprise. More and more, becoming a musician is up to self-motivated individuals. My 12 year old daughter is one of them.

[kreider204]

Well, we all know that musicandart ain't as important as mathandscience ...

[Jazzdogg]

If faced with the decision whether to keep their jobs and do extra paper work as a consequence, most of the teachers I know (myself included) would rather forego administrative support than stop teaching.

Most school districts are bloated with overhead expenses that have little to do with improving education in the classroom. IMHO, administrators and support staff who have non-instructional jobs - and the overhead encompassed by their benefits, pension, office space, vehicles, etc. - should be the first to go.

Teachers may benefit from administrative support; students definitely benefit from instruction!

[kreider204]

Originally Posted by Jazzdogg

If faced with the decision whether to keep their jobs and do extra paper work as a consequence, most of the teachers I know (myself included) would rather forego administrative support than stop teaching.

Most school districts are bloated with overhead expenses that have little to do with improving education in the classroom. IMHO, administrators and support staff who have non-instructional jobs - and the overhead encompassed by their benefits, pension, office space, vehicles, etc. - should be the first to go.

Teachers may benefit from administrative support; students definitely benefit from instruction!

As a fellow teacher, I applaud you, sir!

[salcott]

Keep in mind, too, that many conservatives hate and fear art and will cut funding for it any time they can.

[Don Higdon]

Originally Posted by salcott

Keep in mind, too, that many conservatives hate and fear art and will cut funding for it any time they can.

Oh, really? An essential element in Mike Huckabee's campaign was the resurrection of art and music in the nation's education system. Do you think the Paterson government and Bd of Ed are controlled by conservatives? Ridiculous.

[harry182]

im by no means saying music and art arnt important as i play bass so its my world. But from an educational point of view, There are more important subjects such as Maths, English and science!

If they haven't got the money, cuts are going to have to be made somewhere

Drama is another subject that falls in with Music and art although im sure alot will argue that its a confidence building subject

[Jake deVilliers]

Originally Posted by Don Higdon

Faced with a huge budget deficit, New Jersey's cutting everywhere, including schools. The local boards, in turn, have to cut the school budgets.
Yesterday, the City of Paterson (population 150,000) abolished the jobs of 50 music teachers, i.e., the entire music department.
So what else is new?

Not to diminish the sadness of New Jersey's decision but that's old news around here. They chopped the String program in Vancouver area schools many years ago and the Band and Vocal programs may be next. The provincial government is busy downloading responsibilities onto municipal governments without sending any money to pay for them.

They will be cutting teaching positions for the next school year even though enrollment is increasing.

[Rockman]

Originally Posted by harry182

im by no means saying music and art arnt important as i play bass so its my world. But from an educational point of view, There are more important subjects such as Maths, English and science!

If they haven't got the money, cuts are going to have to be made somewhere

Drama is another subject that falls in with Music and art although im sure alot will argue that its a confidence building subject

I disagree. The problem is that its easier to claim that Maths/English/Science are more important. But they aren't more important to a musician, just like English isn't more important that Maths/Science to an Engineer/Scientist and Maths/Science aren't more important to a Writer than English and History to someone who wants to be a historian.

[Southpaw5]

Originally Posted by kreider204

Well, we all know that musicandart ain't as important as mathandscience ...

Or Athletics. it makes me very sad that music and art are treated as if they are less important

[Steve Killingsworth]

Originally Posted by salcott

Keep in mind, too, that many conservatives hate and fear art and will cut funding for it any time they can.

Clearly, the vast right wing conspiracy is behind this. As part of its disinformation campaign, I'll offer this.

Schools today are not the schools of 30 years ago or even 10 years ago. The emphasis today (from the national level on down) is on standardized test scores--mainly in math, science, and English but moving toward all subjects. When a system's funding depends on test scores, when an administrator's job depends on test scores, when a teacher's job depends on--what do you expect to be cut first? Algebra? Geometry Biology? English?

Tennessee recently won a major grant ($500 million!) from the US Department of Education. As part of that I (a teacher) will be evaluated yearly and a significant portion of my evaluation will come from how my students score on standardized tests. Some students come from unbelievable bad home situations, others are absent the majority of the time, some just don't care AND yet, my performance is judged by their performance.

I realize there are incompetent teachers and administrators. I understand there is waste and bad management. I agree that there must be accountability. But all this requires administrators to make difficult decisions and unfortunately, arts and physical education are among the first to the chopping block.

Okay, now that I've shared my fascist propaganda, I'll get back to work memorizing Dick Cheney's autobiography.

[Treyzer]

I had to jump in to this as I am also a teacher. Although I've been a professional musician for most of my life, I've been teaching economics, sociology and U.S. History in the state of Hawaii for the last 10 years. Prior to becoming a teacher in the DOE (Dept. of Education), I thought I pretty much knew what was wrong with public education and who was to blame for all our educational woes. After I became a teacher I soon realized there was enough blame to go around. In point of fact, all stake holders in our educational system share the blame.

1.) At least in Hawaii, the DOE is a massive bloated system with too many people making way too much money. Many of these ex teachers become experts on something and have not been in a classroom for the last 20 years. We have lots and lots of chiefs who have not been on the front lines of education, the classroom and they have forgotten what is truly important in terms of teaching and supporting teachers.

2.) Although we have many wonderful teachers, we also have lots and lots of deadwood. Teachers, and I use this term loosely, who do nothing but show movies and have students do bookwork which is usually dull and boring. Because of our very strong union, these inferior teachers cannot be replaced, reprimanded or placed on any kind of probationary status.

3.) There are many parents who now believe that the sun shines out the rear ends of their amazing offspring. Everyone but their child is reponsible for their student's failures and their student's lack of general civility at school. When I went to school it was important for me as a student to respect my teachers and get good grades. If I didn't, there would be major trouble at home. These days, many parents enable their children like the co-dependant spouse of a drunk or drug user. They raise children that will be the kind of people the rest of us would rather not be around in any social or work situation.

4.) Last but not least, citizens who support the arts in our public school systems who somehow find a way to blame a particular political party for all of the educational problems we are having. This is incredibly sloppy thinking and has no basis in fact. I always find it interesting that some seemingly intelligent individuals can express such uninformed and factually inaccurate positions. In actuality, our national educational problems can be attributed to the incredible sociological educational experiment that has been in place for about the last 50 years which has made our public educational system so incredibly poor. This experiment has been foisted on the American public by very well-meaning progressive leaning educators and politicians. It has made our educational system far more concerened with a student's self esteem than their development as a literate, intelligent citizen. The reason we have to focus so heavily on the three R's, (reading, riting and rythmatic), is because we as a nation, are turning out students who are well below what is considered average in Western or Eastern Europe as well as China and many parts of the Middle East. To put is bluntly, we are not competitive with the rest of the modern world. If we continue on in this way we will become like Ancient Rome or Great Britain. As Winston Churchill so aptly stated, "Those who do not study (understand) history, are doomed to repeat it".

Although I am very sad to see reductions in the arts in schools. We have far larger problems. I do know that in Hawaii, if we trimmed our bloated DOE and we made teachers more accountable, we would probably have the money to spend on more art and music programs.

Peace

[Steve Killingsworth]

Sounds like Hawaii and Tennessee operate the same system.

Well said Trey.

[Square Bear]

Originally Posted by Southpaw5

Or Athletics. it makes me very sad that music and art are treated as if they are less important

it's not necessarily less important, but it's definitely less lucrative. hard to cut a program that brings in $$.

[Basshappi]

Well said Treyzer.

[mpm]

Being a Special Ed. teacher in California, I loved this story...so this special ed. kid goes to school where he promptly stabs the teacher...the parents then sue the school district for "not teaching their kid to not stab teachers"...oh, btw, I'm retiring in 29 days.....!

[salcott]

I guess growing up in Texas and seeing what was (and is) prioritized (football or art) affects the way I see things. I also remember the rightwing attacks on and decimation of the NEA, not to mention Giuliani's idiotic attempts to censor things he personally didn't like.
I wouldn't be using Huckabee as an example, either; he's famous for talking centrist and acting Teabag.