Why Music Matters: How Participation in a Professional Learning Community can Expand the Role of Music Educators

Facing steady decline and elimination of music programs due to highstakes testing coupled with tighter budgets, music educators are searching for ways to show their relevancy within an accountability culture. One potential way for a music educator to contribute to student achievement is through participation in a professional learning community (PLC) with academic teachers to support their shared students’ learning. The purpose of this study was to document the PLC collaborative experiences of a music educator and two core academic subject teachers who worked together to understand, develop, implement, and assess how the music teacher can support academic teachers in meeting the science and mathematics learning needs of under-represented students. Data analyzed included verbatim transcripts from eight audiotaped PLC meetings, as well as student artifacts and teacher journal entries. This article reports on three themes that emerged across the data: long-term relationships and contextual knowledge; infusion of music to support academic learning; and use of multigrade classrooms. These themes reflect how collaborative work between a music teacher and academic teachers within a PLC can lead to changes in teacher practice to better support learning for all students. Nationally, there has been a steady decline and elimination of music programs due to increased accountability and high-stakes testing coupled with tighter budgets due to less funding. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 shifted educational priorities toward subjects assessed on standardized achievement tests (Major, 2013). This unfunded mandate has resulted in a reduction of class time for untested subject areas or their complete elimination (McMurrer, 2007). There is a large body of research touting the value of music education in schools, but music classes tend to be one of the first areas affected by state budget cuts (Abril & Gault, 2008; Education Commission of the States, 2006; Gerrity, 2009; Schultz, 2006). In 2011, the Florida education budget was cut by one billion dollars. In many districts, those budget cuts eliminated teaching positions in voluntary pre–kindergarten, art, physical education, and music. The National Association of State Budget officers found that K–12 public education budget cuts will “reduce or eliminate personnel and programs vital to the most vulnerable populations: lower–income and minority students” (Bryant, 2011). These vulnerable and often invisible populations are also frequently associated with the achievement gap, the observed, persistent disparity of educational measures between the performances of groups of students, especially groups defined by socioeconomic status (SES), race/ethnicity, and gender 1 Harris: Why Music Matters Published by Scholar Commons, 2017 (Hidden Curriculum, 2014). Ladson–Billings (2007) redefined the achievement gap as the opportunity gap. The opportunity gap encompasses disparities in teacher quality, curricula, school funding, healthcare, wealth, education, affordable housing, and quality childcare (Boykin & Noguera, 2011; Carter & Welner, 2013). While some scholars believe the social inequalities driven by the opportunity gap are too extensive for schools to significantly impact the achievement gap, others maintain that with high quality teachers, rigorous curricula, and continuous support through professional learning, teachers can significantly impact the opportunity gap (Holland, 2007). Schools can mitigate the opportunity gap by dividing it into the expectations gap, the relationships gap, and the participation gap (Quaglia, Fox, & Corso, 2010). The expectations gap includes the expectations teachers hold for individual students as well as the difference between “students’ expectations of themselves and what they perceive to be the teachers’ opinion of their potential” (Quaglia, et al., 2010, para. 3). The relationship gap is directly linked to the quality of teacher–student relationships and student effort. Research shows the relationships students have with teachers is one of the best predictors of hard work and engagement (Osterman, 2000). There is evidence that programs emphasizing teaching and connectedness are a more effective way to meet the needs of students (Barrett & Lamy, 2013). The participation gap addresses the opportunities afforded to the few students who are actively involved and participating in the life of the school. According to MacDonald (2014), each of these three gaps holds the potential to reduce the achievement gap between black and white students as each gap is actively addressed by school personnel and by classroom teachers. Music educators are in a unique position to address these three gaps by working to link success in music to the academic experiences of their students. If a music teacher takes responsibility for linking music achievement to academic achievement, particularly in relationship to meeting the needs of students who enter school with an opportunity gap, they may be perceived as more relevant within the current era of high–stakes testing and accountability. The National Association for Music Education has lobbied diligently and campaigned aggressively to keep music in our schools. With limited empirical evidence and many qualitative studies presenting predominantly correlational evidence, the effort to keep music in our schools has been less than effective. Cuts in music teacher positions in my state and district are an ever–present reality and are increasing at an alarming rate (Gerrity, 2009; Major, 2013, McMurrer, 2007; Schultz, 2006). 2 Journal of Practitioner Research, Vol. 2 [2017], Iss. 2, Art. 5 http://scholarcommons.usf. edu/jpr/vol2/iss2/5 DOI: http://doi.org/10.5038/2379-9951.2. 2.1042 As a music teacher in the state of Florida with thirty years of experience, I have observed a steady reduction of many elective teachers, including music teachers. Particularly in the past ten years, reducing art and music positions to halftime, leaving vacancies open after retirement, teaching reading out of field, sharing halftime teachers between schools, or completely eliminating music programs has been a consistent theme. Music conferences at the local, state, and national levels are filled with discussions of the relevancy of music and the necessary steps to provide evidence of the value of music education in the schools. One way to show relevancy is through connections between music and academic achievement. Music researchers, working for the last two decades to establish a link between the arts and academic achievement, have shown collective progress in identifying a positive relationship between music and the learning that takes place in other subject areas. Scripp (2002) found, however, that “the authors of these meta–analyses caution against over–reaching claims of causal relationships between music and academic achievement and recommend further practitioner research is needed to specify how these links can be best and most consistently achieved” (p. 143). As the middle and high school choral instructor in a K–12 school, I engaged in practitioner research to better understand the role I can play in collaborating with academic teachers to support the academic achievement of students who enter our school with an opportunity gap. The focus of the collaboration was to identify and develop connections between students’ experiences in music class and their academic coursework. To achieve this end, as a music educator, I initiated, facilitated and fully participated in a professional learning community with two academic teachers. I have observed children who are extremely talented musically but who struggle to be successful in their academic classes. For the first 21 years of my career, I taught in isolation without any collaborative support, but that changed when I began to teach at a Developmental Research School. The school serves approximately 1150 students in kindergarten through twelfth grade. The school is designed as a special school district under the Department of Education funding and is given the responsibility to develop innovative solutions to educational concerns in the state and to disseminate successful instructional programs to other school districts. The research school enrolls a student population that reflects the demographic composition of the student age population of the state. To fulfill its 3 Harris: Why Music Matters Published by Scholar Commons, 2017 mission statement, identified as “collaborating to meet the needs of each child,” one of the primary roles of the school is to develop, evaluate, and disseminate exemplary programs of education. Teacher inquiry, a mechanism for teacher professional development, is an important part of the school’s research mission and faculty scholarship. Teacher inquiry projects are carried out yearly. As both a middle and high school choral director, I became immersed in teacher inquiry and began a yearly process of analyzing my own practice while working closely with other teachers in a professional learning community. The relationships built with these teachers and the common goal of making a difference in the lives of our students changed and enriched my teaching practice. First, as the middle school performing arts teacher and then as the high school choral director at my school, I continually observed the difficult transition from middle school to high school math and science for many of my African– American students. Their musical ability and talent placed them in elite high school music performance ensembles, but the opportunity gap continued to affect their other academic classes (most drastically in biology and geometry). I wondered if there was something that could be done to support the learning of students who displayed a high degree of musical talent and commitment, but who struggled to be successful in their math and science classes. Through several years of collaboration