Budget cuts

There is a lot of controversy in public schools today about how much funding music programs should get and the significance of their importance in education. This issue never really hit close to home with me until I started thinking about teaching music myself, about where I would be teaching and what the budget and finances would be like to support the program. I came from a school district in a fairly well-off, populous area of Wisconsin where property and general taxes are incredibly high and the schools have little financial trouble, but at one point we did face the prospect of budget cuts. Being in a well-off district was of course a blessing while I was involved with the music program---we had wonderful teachers, many opportunities to perform, decent rehearsal spaces, and good instruments. We're talking a full-size auditorium with a Steinway grand piano onstage. But my eyes are beginning to open to the stark differences in many other areas of the midwest and the country in comparison to my home district. A lot of schools struggle to keep their music programs thriving or to keep them afloat at all. Budget cuts, decreases is government funding and district/community are constant issues. As a teacher, I'm going to work very hard against this. Budget cuts and decreased funding may be issues, but they will not be acceptable. The music ensembles at my high school, in the midst of budget cuts, started and continued traditions of program-wide fundraisers that were incredibly successful, and I hopefully will be able to initiate these traditions at whatever school I teach at. My high school orchestra put on their annual "Puttin' on the Ritz" dinner/dance, that brought in $8,000 in one night. My high school choir program put on a yearly Madrigal Dinner that brought in close to that. These, if perhaps on a smaller scale, will hopefully be easily implemented wherever I teach. Not only did they promote community involvement in school music and bring in a lot of money, but they were fun opportunities for students to perform and get involved in big planning projects.

Having been a music student all my life, it's sometimes hard for me to understand how some people think music is not an important part of education. Cutting financial support for it just because it doesn't bring as much glory as, say, a football team, is just inconceivable to me. An interesting question was brought up in class the other day, Dr. Langholz asked the music students, "Would you have had an enthusiasm and desire to go to school if you hadn't had a music program?" It jarred me when I realized the answer to this was no. I was never a terribly motivated student when it came to homework and other things related to academics, and I realize now that I would have had no patience or motivation in school had I not been able to take Music Theory, Orchestra, and Choir every day of my high school career. I know I'm not alone in this. Cutting music out of schools should never be an issue. It should not be the first thing to go when a school is faced with decreased finances. And if it becomes an issue, music programs should know that there are things they can do to counteract these problems.