Music Education

Music education in the schools during the past 5 decades has witnessed a continuous transformation in curriculum content, scheduling, its function in academia, as well as course offerings. Several key events have played a role in this transformation.

Many public educators viewed school curriculum in the 1950s as imbalanced—particularly lacking education in the arts. According to Ole Sand, the American Association of School Administrators responded in 1959 with a statement specifying that a well-balanced school curriculum will include the arts alongside other academic subjects such as history, mathematics, and science, emphasizing the value that general education teaches students to “appreciate, understand, create, and criticize with discrimination those products of the mind, the voice, the hand, and the body which give dignity to the person and exalt the spirit of man.” The National Education Association through its Project on Instruction document also supported the inclusion of arts in the school curriculum.

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (Public Law 89-10) provided support specifically for music education in Title I, permitting low-income-area school districts to receive funding to hire music teachers and purchase instruments and equipment. This was extremely significant, as participation in school music programs in the 1960s grew considerably nationwide.

Several national meetings occurred in the 1960s to address issues and concerns in music education. The Yale Seminar (1963) was a federally funded project to explore the problems facing music education and to find potential solutions. The current curriculum did not appear to produce musically literate students and active participatory adults. Music curriculum in Grades K-12 needed to be examined. Results of the Yale Seminar were highly critical of the quality of instructional materials used in music classrooms. The Juilliard Repertory Project (1964) was then created to locate music of the highest quality for instruction in K-12 music classrooms. In 1967 another historic meeting took place, this time in Massachusetts, with representation from the field of music education as well as from sociology, philosophy, history, psychology, labor, and the media. The Tanglewood Symposium sought to identify the role of music education. Outcomes included the call for music as a core curricular subject in the school curriculum and for music education to be taught comprehensively, specifically including music of various cultures. Curricular revisions followed.

Michael L. Mark and Charles L. Gary noted a concern for accountability in the schools rose in the 1970s from noticeably declining results in SAT scores. A return to the “basics” prompted cuts in music programs throughout the country. Music Educators National Conference (MENC) responded with efforts toward music education advocacy through publications, advertisements, and conferences. In 1988 MENC was a part of a national ad hoc coalition monitoring policy that affected the arts. The Goals 2000 Act included arts education as a core subject due to this coalition. Advocacy efforts also led to an MENC publication on the National Commission on Music Education report (whose members included notable actors and musicians) titled Growing Up Complete: The Imperative for Music Education. This publication played a key role in future decisions to include the arts in the core curriculum.

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