Belmont, CA August 27, 2003 -- Against a backdrop of the worst economic times since the Great Depression and in a state teetering on the verge of bankruptcy with a recall that roars, there is a little school district in a little community determined to guarantee that their children will have access to music education. Up and down the state, thousands of California children are returning to classrooms where budget cuts have taken a deep toll on teachers and curriculum. This little school district is determined to make sure that kids don't come out the losers in the California debate.
Located in the middle of San Francisco and Silicon Valley are the communities of Belmont and Redwood Shores, California. This year, with lay-offs, company closures, and an unemployment rate hovering at 9%, the community raised $250,000. The money helped keep the school libraries open three hours per day and saved several teacher positions. They also started a letter writing campaign to the Governor of California that effectively began one of the largest grass roots efforts seen here in 20 years.
Their tenacity did not go unnoticedโ€" two broken fax machines later, the Governor's secretary called the Superintendent to request that the town quit writing, e-mailing, and faxing so many letters! Faced with a $1.5 million dollar deficit and a Superintendent that jumped ship for a richer school district, plans were made to launch a community wide fundraiser that would save music and the arts in the public schools.
Save The Music With The Little School District That Could was hatched and put into play that day. Yet, what they uncovered is something every American should know. โ€œWe are perilously close to realizing the death of music in the majority of our public schools. Quite simply and silently, across the country, music and the arts are dying,โ€ said Deborah Stephens, a parent in the school district.
โ€œWhen I began to look at the research, I realized that much more was at stake than just music. The connection between music and a child's competency in science and math are so intertwined that โ€˜do-re-mi leads to PC.โ€ The heavy emphasis on improving reading and math scores in California, coupled with the dramatic funding cuts, is coming dangerously close to making the song, The Day The Music Died a reality.โ€ said Stephens.
Van Ton, Co-President of School Force, the parent foundation, makes a poignant point: โ€œResearch teams, exploring the link between music and intelligence have reported that music training is far superior to computer instruction in dramatically enhancing children's abstract reasoning skills. These are the very skills necessary for learning math and science. โ€ โ€"Yet, here we sit, in the middle of the fifth largest economic power in the world and the birthplace of technology and music, closing down the very programs that have inspired our best scientists and technologists.
Ironically, California, (the birthplace of Napster, the iPod and the sounds of Carlos Santana, Jefferson Starship and The Grateful Dead) leads the nation in cuts to music and the arts in the public schools. Owen Bruce exemplifies the irony. Owen has taught for 30 years in the little school district. Owen is still on staff, but next year, for the first time in his teaching career, he will not be teaching music to the majority of the kids who attend the public schools. His life's work became a number that was cut from the operating budget of the school district. Owen is a living, breathing โ€œstatisticโ€ of what is going on all over America:
Music and the arts are on the chopping block in 48 states.
Despite Americans' clear support for music education and participation, budget cuts and shifting priorities have placed those programs in more danger than ever. Currently, up to 28 million American students do not receive an adequate music education, and cuts in education funding are either pending or have been enacted in more than half the states nationwide. According to the Music Education Coalition, the current round of budget cuts could lead to curtailment of programs depriving as many as 30 million studentsโ€"more than 60 percent of those enrolled in grades K-12โ€"of an education that includes music.
These cuts come at a time when the importance of music education is better understood than ever before. The College Entrance Examination Board found, for example, that students in music appreciation scored 63 points higher on verbal and 44 points higher on the math than students with no arts participation. U.S. Department of Education data on more than 25,000 secondary school students found that students who report consistent high levels of involvement in instrumental music over the middle and high school years show โ€œsignificantly higher levels of mathematics proficiency.
Save The Music With The Little School District That Could and the communities of Belmont and Redwood Shores, California are determined to make sure that the music plays on in their 6 public schools.
Information: Deborah Stephens 650-622-9115