As we all know, schools have been intent on raising their Stanford 9 test scores. The bad news is that music teachers report a whittling away at arts programs to devote more time to reading and math. It is discriminatory. Not all students can participate after school. Recent editorials to our paper increasingly have opposed the idea that some students receive arts instruction and others do not.
Music is a part of the curriculum for all elementary students.
It makes far more sense to put extra math tutoring or reading tutoring after school, for those students who need it, than to deprive students of a required curricular offering during the school day. So where's the good news, you might be asking. Consider this data. Thus these children get an hour of arts instruction more than other children in Stockton Unified. If extra time in music means less time doing readin', writin', and 'rithmetic, then we would expect to see these schools' scores suffering.