The Norm, Not The Exception

Another one to add to my Why I Love Solo and Ensemble list:

At Solo and Ensemble on Saturday, a seventh grader's duet partner failed to show up for unknown reasons. Her mom made the trip to hear her even though she was in a wheelchair with a broken leg. Her younger sibling's birthday party was rescheduled so she could play. She dressed up and had her hair in an intricate braid with a fresh flower pinned into it. She waited over an hour until she was the last student left in the warm-up room. And she wasn't going to get to perform. 

Rather than let that be her first Solo and Ensemble experience, the judge I was working with played the duet along with her before taking a little extra time to work with the student who was our last performance of a long day. She walked out smiling and feeling pretty important for getting to play with the judge when just 30 minutes prior had been near tears and uninterested in playing. 

That is what teaching is about. Don't ever tell me that teachers don't care. Stories like this aren't the exception. They are the norm. I love my job.

Should the Arts be Standardized?

No.

That should be the end of the argument. But unfortunately, it's not.

The entire concept of a subject area that emphasizes self expression and encourages outside the box thinking being assessed on standardized scales seems oxymoronic.

Are there benchmarks that students should reach as they develop as artists, musicians, or dancers? Absolutely. And there are standards that have been created both nationally and often locally that educators can use in their guidance of students.

But those educators should be free to utilize those standards in a way that best works for their students. There are huge disparities in the availability of arts education programs, and a one size fits all approach is the wrong direction.

The well-meaning argument is being made that this will help bring arts education to the level of emphasis as our non-arts counterparts then, therefore bringing equity to arts offerings. Is standardizing really the way we want to do that? Or is it simply the practical choice in an era of over-emphasis on the important of tests?

We're arts educators. How many of us chose this profession because of its practicality, and why on earth would we start being practical about our passion for art, music, theater, or dance now? What new creativity and thinking would we be quashing by telling students they don't meet the standard for their chosen art form?

Instead of shoving our way into a bad party serving only an alphabet soup of assessments (which many of our friends are desperately trying to leave), we need to fight for equal access to quality arts instruction for all students. Not because it helps them on other tests in other subjects; but because the arts have their own inherent worth that do not and should not need justification based on non-arts learning.

We do not need standardized assessments to legitimize the arts. To do so is an insult to the generations of people who have been creating art for beauty, worship, exploration, understanding, and expression for a very long time before we came along, and the generations who will continue to do so either with us or in spite of us.

The View of School Choice from Out Here

On the way to dinner yesterday, we drove by an electronic billboard advertising a nearby school district looking to encourage people to make those schools their schools of choice. Is this really what schools have to spend money on now? It's not the first time I've asked this question. I ask it every time the six page, full color mailer from the district I live in comes quarterly to us as well as people in surrounding districts (including the one I teach in). I ask it when I see a full page ad in the Sunday paper. I ask it when I hear a radio spot.  I ask it when I go to the movies and there's a school district's commercial before the trailers. Why aren't the people who are so concerned with how schools choose to spend their money concerned about the thousands and thousands of dollars being wasted on school of choice ads? Because they're often the ones who think school choice is what's going to make our schools better.

Please don't misunderstand, I do not blame those districts for advertising (though the time the neighboring Goliath rented our David district's one and only tiny "hall" to hold an informational meeting was fairly dirty). They are simply adapting to the world that's been created in education. Due to Michigan's decreasing population and birth rates, we're all fighting for the same kids because no matter what schools do, most districts are losing students.

Many policy makers think this is all wonderful because schools have to work harder to compete with each other, which in turn makes them work harder for their kids. To a degree, that may be true. Here's the problem with competition though, it produces losers. That's great for sports and keeping cable prices down. It's not great for schools though, because the losers in this situation are students with little say in the matter.

Those who like this business model for schools say "Don't like your school? Go somewhere else. The bad schools will close up and the kids benefit." Except that's not how things work. As in many things, it comes down to money. Some families can afford to transport their children to other districts on their own. They have the time, transportation, and resources to where this is not a problem. But what about those students left behind? As each student leaves, funding for that district goes down. The students whose families cannot take them elsewhere are now left in a school with far fewer resources, which must now make even more cutbacks and offer less and less.

Even more sad is that the schools that kids are leaving aren't necessarily bad ones. I taught in a rural district of about 600 kids. They well for being so small, and offer more than you'd think we can. But in all honesty, there are just some things that they cannot offer or compete with due to our size.   Unfortunately, they're surrounded by larger districts who can offer more, and it's hurting already small enrollment numbers.

"Then consolidate! Close up and send your students to the 'bigger and better' districts!" many would say. It would save so much of the taxpayers' money if we didn't have to pay for all those extra schools. There may be some places where this could be a long-term benefit. But schools who aren't in a large metropolitan area are often flat out ignored in this discussion. Policy makers seem to forget that there are schools in places other than major cities. There are a lot of direct and indirect consequences in these situations.

Those families who couldn't afford to send their kids to other schools probably can't afford to move either. Kids in more rural areas would be putting in 10+ hour days when you include their bus rides. There are a number of families who chose smaller districts like ours because their kids struggled in a larger settings. Now those kids would be thrown back into a bigger place that they were trying to avoid in the first place.

Additionally, the district I taught in is the largest employer in that community. I'm not talking about the teachers either, though a few of them do live in district. I'm talking about the secretaries, custodians, para-professionals, cooks, bus drivers, media center specialists, lunch/recess aides, and substitute teachers who live there. Along with decimating the heart of the community and closing up a district that has been around over 130 years, dozens will be left jobless. Instead of tax money going to support a local school, it will pay for unemployment.

A better solution needs to be found for our students.  Schools shouldn't have to try and poach kids from surrounding areas to stay open and functioning at their highest level.  Every student, no matter where they are located, deserves an excellent education in a place that fits their needs.