The New Sounds Of Sucess In School
BY HERBERT KUPFERBERG

Senior Editor Herbert Kupferberg writes the “What~ Up This Week” column of book reviews for PARADE. He is also a recognized authority’ on musical subjects and is the author of 10 books, among them “The Mendelssohns: Three Generations of Genius” and “The Book of Classical Music Lists.” We asked him to survey the current state of music education in the public schools, and this is his report.

WHEN THE SPACE VEHICLE Voyager II was launched back in 1977, scientists led by the late Carl Sagan decided to include in its baggage a gold-coated recording that could greet the occupants of any remote world with classical music by Bach, Mozart and Beethoven—just to show them the high level of civilization we had reached on earth. So far, no response has been received from outer space.
    Some people wondered at the time whether such music would receive much of a response if the space capsule somehow landed in the United States instead. For, back in the late 1970s and ‘80s, musical education in American public schools was at a low ebb. Instruction in music—indeed, in the arts in general—was discarded in many school districts as a “frill,” unworthy of serious investment in educational time or money. Schools dropped their orchestras or bands, stopped handing out instruments,
eliminated classroom singing and never exposed their pupils to the pleasures of hearing music, let alone performing it. As Ned Rorern, one of America’ s leading composers, wryly remarked: “In the old days, whether the kids hated music or not, there it was. Now it is not even there to hate.”
   Fortunately, this attitude is now showing signs of change, with more and more schools reviving or stepping up their music and arts programs. That’s the good news. The bad news is that not enough are doing so, and that too many elementary and high schools are still turning out cultural illiterates.
 I got my initial indication of an improvement in U.S. musical education firsthand, when my granddaughter, aged 8, arrived home from school with the announcement that she was being given “a flute you can blow into from the end.” This instrument was, of course, a recorder, an ancient and honorable musical pipe often used to introduce children to reading notes and making pleasurable sounds—in other words, the art of making music.
    What makes music in the schools such a big deal? One answer is that more and more parents seem to be realizing that the arts are a part of a well-rounded education. Music courses may not turn students into musicians; but, on the other hand, chemistry classes don’t necessarily make them chemists, either. Besides, arts instruction stands in the tradition of educational democracy. Nature has away of maplanting musical or artistic talent in all kinds of people—minorities as well as majorities, poor kids as well as rich kids. Just as athletic scholarships can help an otherwise slow pupil to future success, so the schools can help
musically or artistically gifted children and possibly put them on the road to a productive life.
  I happen to believe that music and the arts are worth knowing for their own sake. As my wife, a high school language teacher, puts it: “Trigonometry is for a term, music is for a lifetime.” But I’m increasingly impressed by the evidence that music in the schools has a ripple effect and actually improves many students’ performance in other subject areas. That doesn’t necessarily mean that if your kid takes up the banjo, he or she will get straight A’s across the board. But survey after survey demonstrates that exposure to music can enhance everything from reading readiness to math proficiency. No one is sure why, but neurological factors apparently are involved.
     In 1998, according to the Educational Testing Service in Princeton, N.J., students with  four or more years of study in the arts outscored students with six months or less of arts instruction by a combined total of 82 points on the verbal and mathematics portions of the Scholastic Aptitude Tests. Comments Dr. John J. Mahlmann, executive director of MENC: The National Association for Music Education, which has spearheaded the drive for music in the schools: “You teach music because it’s music, beautiful in itseft. But if you can show a correlation with the SAT scores, that’s when school boards sit up and take notice.”
     Many school boards are indeed impressed. Joan Schmidt a Montanan who is a director of the National School Boards Association, which represents local school boards across the country, told me that she too has been convinced by the evidence
 that students who participate in music earn higher grades and score better on standardized tests.
    "Music has a tremendous value as an academic discipline," says Schmidt.  “It contributes to the understanding of other subjects. In school there‘s a tremendous difference between learning about and doing. With music, you do both.  And now brain research is showing that music helps everybody learn—it isn’t just that the smarter kids take music. More schools have to pay attention to the arts, by teaching them and by getting more community involvement. We need to train more music teachers and make a greater effort to have staffers who understand the arts.
  “Funding always is a problem for a school board, but the question is, do we want minimal education for survival, or education for a quality life?”
    It’s a question that educators, school boards and parents increasingly will have to face up to. A set of voluntary National Standards for Arts Education, underwritten by the U.S. Department of Education, was established in 1994, but it remains doubtful how many school pupils actually are receiving the kind of consistent, sequential exposure to music that can produce real results. Especially disappointing, in the view of some experts, are indications that only one in four students nationwide is involved in actual performance, such as singing or playing an instrument. Some of the school boards out there still have a lot to do.
    So that’s why I was delighted the other day to hear my granddaughter, with her music in front of her, play “Hot Cross Buns” on her recorder. So far, it’s the only song she knows, but a Beethoven symphony couldn’t have thrilled me more. And if it helps her with her spelling, so much the better.

WANT TO KNOW MORE?
For further information or suggestions, write to MENC:
The National Association for Music Education
Dept. P, 1806 Robert Fulton Drive, Reston, Va 20191;
telephone 1-800-336-3768; or visit www.menc.org on the Web.