Music education, both in the public schools and in higher education, is at a precarious point. A 2006 survey by the Center on Education Policy, an independent education policy think tank, found that since the passage of NCLB in 2001, 71 percent of the nation’s 15,000 school districts had reduced the hours of instructional time spent on history, music and other subjects to open up more time for reading and math. This narrowing of the public school curriculum has been accompanied by an increased emphasis on standardized testing, especially in the subject areas of math and reading, in a back to basics movement that has threatened to alter the very fabric of American public education.
Never before in my teaching career can I think of a time when what we had to offer as music teachers and music teacher educators was more desperately needed, by our students, our schools and our society. I often tell my students that the job we are preparing them for as teachers is an amazing one—it allows them to make decisions, solve problems, make interpretive choices, and be responsible for making a glorious whole out of disparate, disconnected pieces. It seems to me that our goal as music teachers is to make sure that the students in our ensembles and classes also view their ‘jobs’ in the same way—that they feel creative, empowered, and independent. It is both our privilege and our challenge to be music teacher educators during an exciting and volatile time in our profession’s history, and it is the role of our professional organizations to provide the leadership and guidance necessary to support all of us as we move into the future.
