Keeping Music Education in Schools
Keeping Music Education in Schools
Kate Warlick
English III-Honors
15 October 2007
Outline
Thesis: Out of all of the fine arts, music education is the most beneficial to all areas of learning
and should be made available to students of every age and background regardless of the cost.
I. Cultural Background
1. Mozart
2. Beethoven
B. Musical Contributions
1. New Orleans
2. Harlem Renaissance
3. Broadway
A. Historical Pieces
B. Travel Opportunities
III. Studies
C. Mozart Effect
A. Lack of Time
B. Lack of Funding
C. Lack of Importance
A. Government Involvement
B. Celebrity Involvement
C. Local Involvement
Keeping Music Education in Schools
more on strictly academic courses, such as maths and sciences rather than on the fine arts classes.
The fine art classes such as art, band and chorus, drama, and others are just as necessary to a
well-rounded education as algebra or chemistry. Out of all of the fine arts, music education is the
most beneficial to all areas of learning and should be made available to students of every age and
Throughout the history of civilization, musical geniuses have helped sculpt generations
into the cultures that we now recognize. These cultures have helped mold today’s society in
uncountable ways. Ted Turner stated in the Ted Broadcasting System, “Music has a great power
for bringing people together. With so many forces in this world acting to drive wedges between
people, it’s important to preserve those things that help us experience our common humanity.
(MENC 2007). Today’s students need to be taught about the musical contributions of the past in
order to understand the world they experience today. There have been a few extremely major
One of those was the jazz era that grew in New Orleans. When the tragedy of Hurricane
Katrina occurred, many students who did not have the benefit of having a music history
Another important musical era was the Harlem Renaissance. This period in time was a
blooming of the African American culture. It housed the beginning of such groundbreaking
artists as Billie Holiday, Fats Waller, and Jelly Roll Morton among others, and introduced new
music genres such as ragtime. (Johnson sec.1) When students have the benefits of having music
classes, such as in this case, jazz ensembles where they play music stemming from this period,
they are able to learn first hand about the culture. Jazz also helps develop management skills. J.
you are in an improv jazz ensemble or a small chamber group, you learn to think fast on your
feet and how to be flexible and to collaborate and compromise, and that may yield a creative
outcome” (Qtd. in Zipkin 67). They can then take this knowledge into their history and literature
The music of Broadway has also greatly affected our country’s history. The show tunes of the
big stage helped our country deal with such events as World War II, and The Great Depression.
This information, when taught in a music class, could help students going on into a
psychological field understand the effects of music on the masses. Learning about all of these
time periods and the effects they had on out culture today can help students better understand
their history classes, and the literature of the time that they might be discussing in English class.
When students take part in music ensembles such as band or chorus, they come into
contact with a tremendous amount of historically rich pieces. Every piece of music played in the
band room or sung in the chorus room has a historical reason behind it. Whether it’s written for a
fallen military hero, or written in praise of a cultural icon, each piece is teeming with historical
There are also many educational travel opportunities available when a student is involved
in band or chorus. Many ensembles go on annual trips to cultural hotbeds such as New York City,
Orlando, and Nashville. When music students are here they can experience first hand things that
other students would normally not have the opportunity for. Without music classes in schools,
many students might never get to visit these historical places and could grow up ignorant of
results, the link between music and spatial reasoning, and certain phenomena as the “Mozart
effect”. The fact that music education improves standardized testing scores is no longer even
First graders who received instruction in music listening has significantly higher
reading scores
than those first graders who didn’t receive the instruction but were similar in age,
percentile for reading performance and the non-instructed students scored in the
Spatial-reasoning and spatial intelligence are the type of random brain functions used for
playing chess, attempting abstract mathematics, and basic intellectual development. A study done
by Dr. Frances Rauscher and physicist Dr. Gordon Shaw using four groups of pre-schoolers
showed that those who received piano lessons scored 34% higher on tests used to determine
spatial-temporal ability than the groups who did not (“Music Training” p35).
Another highly tested theory is the “Mozart Effect”. According to Richard Voss, almost
all music, especially Mozart, uses a simple mathematical formulation that expresses how notes
change in pitch over the course of a musical piece. When people are subjected to listening to
Mozart, no matter what age, their spatial-temporal ability is temporarily enhanced (“Growing up
Complete” par.7).
Music educators themselves are the people who are most concerned with the threats of
removing music education from schools. In personal interviews, the majority of music staff
members confirmed that instead of hindering other parts of education, in fact, their music
students were part of the academic elite. The discipline that is needed to work together as an
ensemble carries over into all other areas of the student’s education. Interviews with student
musicians revealed much of the same. When asked about his college experiences with music
classes, Don Schlitz, now a Nashville recording artist replied, “I’ll tell you about a class I had…
math…And we were learning to listen. This music appreciation connected my entire studies.
However, some teachers and parents feel that music education should be taken out of
schools altogether. One of the main reasons, they say, is that in order for students to be held in
the rankings for today’s competitive college admissions, there needs to be more of a focus on
classes that will go towards a higher GPA. However, now that it is getting increasingly difficult
to get into college based entirely on an academic level, colleges are now starting to look at
extracurricular activities and fine arts classes as a deciding factor. To college admissions
counselors, students who have remained in band or chorus for all four years of high school show
a tremendous amount of self-discipline and social aptitude. When forced to choose between two
students with somewhat identical GPAs and academic records, the colleges will almost always
Another reason that some people feel that music education should be taken out of schools
is that there is a lack of funding to provide instruments and needed equipment and that the
money could be better used on something “more useful”. Former Governor of Arkansas, Mike
Huckabee, stated to the Music Educators National Conference (MENC) in June of 2007,
When I hear people asking how do we fix the education system, I tell them we
right brains to function. Ask a CEO what they are looking for in an employee and
they say they need people who understand teamwork, people who are disciplined,
people who understand the big picture. You know what they need? They need
So in reality, music classes are just as important and worthy of funding, perhaps even more so,
There is also apparently a lack of importance to music classes according to some. Many
consider them “fluff classes” used merely to fill in empty schedule places. However, according to
the No Child Left Behind Act, “The term ‘core academic subjects’ means English, reading or
language arts, mathematics, science, foreign languages, civics and government, economics, arts,
history, and geography” (US Dept. Of Ed. Title IX). The government includes the arts in its list
of ‘core academic subjects’ therefore making the fine arts a necessary part of a well-rounded
education.
The supporters of music education are doing as much as they can to ensure that all
students have the opportunity to experience at least a small amount of music education. The
government has done a good deal of help with the aforementioned part of the No Child Left
Behind Act. Celebrities are using their powerful social status to help also. VH1’s Save The Music
has organized many charity concerts to help with everything from rebuilding the music industry
of New Orleans after Katrina to helping needy schools with their meager budgets so that all
Music education needs to be kept in schools. Not only does it help students grow in
intelligence and academic excellence but it also helps them grow more culturally aware. The
children of today are tomorrow’s future. Without musical education in their schools, we as a
country might be looking forward to a socially inept, culturally ignorant society in the future. In
order to have a country and society that works smoothly we need to have a well-balanced
background, and keeping music in schools would solve the problem once and for all.
Works Cited
“Growing Up Complete: The Imperative for Music Education. The Report of The National
< http://www.menc.org/publication/articles/academic/growing.htm>.
U.S. Dept. of Education. No Child Left Behind Act. Title IX, Part A, Sec. 11. 2002. 5 Oct. 2007
<http://www.fatherryan.org/harlemrenaissance/>.
Zipkin, Amy. “Learning Teamwork by Making Music”. New York Times. Nov. 2003.
<http://www.menc.org/information/advocate/facts.html >.
Weinburger, Norman M. “The Music in Our Minds.” Educational Leadership. Nov.1998: p.38
39.