Fee Will Contribute To The Demise of Music Education

Dear Editor,

This past weekend, I “celebrated” my 30th college reunion. This, of course, puts me in a particularly contemplative state of mind with regards to education.

My grandparents came to this country through Ellis Island and my father was a first generation citizen. He was the valedictorian of his class but came from a large, poor family. They lived through the depression and WWII. Of course, there was no money for him to go to college so he chose the Army. When he finished his service, he chose the trades and was very successful. But again, with many children, he had no money for me to go to college either. But I did. I was given an opportunity; a chance was taken on me.

What strikes me about that time, are the sacrifices that were made by parents for their children and for the good of our country. There was little money and the depression and WWII had taken a huge toll. However, people banded together, the GI Bill was passed, schools, roads, museums and libraries were built and enormous investments were made to our public education and health care systems. There was a shared purpose.

The education system I see today is little like what I experienced. Core curriculum included things like drivers ed, shop, home economics, finance, etc. Of course, some of those classes have been replaced with more modern classes. But what is most disturbing is this pervasive opinion that if it’s not mandated and not math, reading or science, it’s not curriculum and should be charged a fee. Charging for anything above this bare minimum of MCAS directed courses will lead to even greater economic discrimination in our public school system. Only those who can afford it will be able to purchase classes of proven value such as music, art, foreign languages, AP courses, etc. Or even worse, those parents who are already facing the burden of caring for special needs children will have additional financial burdens imposed on them. This is a far cry from the vision of public education that was handed down to us by the generations that preceded us. Do we really want to be the first generation in the history of this country that gives our children less than our parents gave us?

To pick music as an example, instrumental music is like a language. It develops the brain pathways, develops focus, creativity and discipline and has been proven to improve academics. This past year at King Philip, we graduated 24 seniors who were members of the National Honor Society, of which 17 were instrumental music students. The salutatorian was a member of the band. In addition, at the middle school awards ceremony, we honored students who achieved all A’s for the year and those who were on the honor roll (As and Bs), not to mention national math award winners. A large percentage of those students are music students. Instrumental music has been part of our Norfolk curriculum for over 25 years because we the people wanted it this way and have worked hard to nurture it. This program feeds a nationally recognized program and is one of the few items of curriculum where we actually collaborate across the entire King Philip District. This is the kind of program we need to maintain and use as a model for other programs. It is my very strong belief that any kind of fee for this program will be a deterrent to participation and contribute to the demise of instrumental music.

Public education is about creating opportunity for everyone. Not every student fits into a nice neat box. Not all students are academically inclined and the arts may be where their interests lie. Not all students can just sit through a school day without an elective that gives them an outlet for their energy. Not every family has the means to pay for every a la carte service. There are many ways in which our society distinguishes the “haves” from the “have nots”-public education should not be one of them.

I want to thank everyone who supports public education and invite all of us to continue the covenant that was created by those who came before us. Let’s share the burden of educating all our children and being the best we can be. Exercise your right to vote in the special election in Norfolk on Tuesday, June, 22.

Sincerely, Barbara M. Snead