ON THE SUBJECT OF MUSIC IN

PUBLIC SCHOOLS

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The following document is a research paper originally written in 2015 for the English 101 course
at Western Carolina University, NC, USA. This document is being shared for entertainment or
informational purposes only, and may not qualify as scholarly research. At best, this is a
reference document pertaining to music education in public schools.

This document has been previously submitted to the BlackBoard SafeAssign database.

Original Copyright 2015. Do not duplicate or reproduce in whole or in part without express
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Zach Shatley

Dr. Melissa Birkhofer

English 101-22

May 4th, 2015

Essay 3 – Persuasive Research Paper

The Halls are Alive with the Sound of Music

Throughout America’s history, public schools, from primary to postsecondary, have been

host to all forms of artistic instruction. Of the broad range of various arts taught to students, the

most notable field may very well be music. In recent times, public school systems have been

faced with more challenges, be it rising national standards or budget crises as a result of the 2008

recession. In order to weather the storm, some school systems have turned to cutting or even

eliminating programs that seem unnecessary or even detrimental to surviving whatever challenge

the system faces. More often than not, the threat of cuts have landed on the heads of teachers

who work in the arts, especially the larger programs that spend more money, such as music

education. However, schools should be loath to cut these programs, because they provide a

source of motivation for students, and improve community involvement with schools.

Anyone who has been involved with music in schools can tell you that most students

enjoy their music classes. While some students take these classes for an easy grade for a year or

two, they are not very likely to continue with music courses for several years. The students who

enroll in music electives year after year do so because they legitimately enjoy music. In fact,

students who repeatedly participate in music courses appear to have a genuine commitment to

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their ensembles, and this commitment is clearly visible to students who do and do not participate

in music (Campbell 227). For these young musicians, music is a gateway into the world. In a

study led by Patricia Campbell from the University of Washington, compiling essay responses

from adolescents written to the prompt “Ban the Elimination of Music Education in Schools”, it

was found that student musicians see musical knowledge as a means of “understanding

civilizations and societies” (227). One participant in the study noted that

It is important to understand that musicians today were inspired by past

musicians. Like George Orwell said, “Who controls the past controls the future.”

Without a past, we have no future. Music defines culture, inspires our culture,

invents dance, and most of all brings us together. (Campbell 227)

However, it is not only the students who partake in the music courses who enjoy music.

Within the same study, many participants stated that music has a mental-emotional benefit, both

as a performer of music as well as a consumer of music, a listener. Often, music is used as a

coping mechanism for various situations and as an emotional respite from the daily routine

(Campbell 229). It’s also found to be a great social influence, acting as a distraction from

dangerous or risky activities such as “drugs, alcohol, smoking (cigarettes), gang life, and

promiscuous sex—in their own lives or in the lives of adolescents in general” (Campbell 230),

for both musicians and non-musicians. One of the essays stated that many of the author’s friends

have “dabbled with suicide, and none of them ever had any involvement with music. Just think,

if at least one of these friends was involved with music, then the education department could

potentially save a life” (Campbell 231).

Beyond the enjoyment of music by students, music also has developmental benefits. A

study of 117 9-year-old children from the largest school board in Montreal, Canada, attempted to

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determine if music education really made a difference on self-esteem and academic scores over

several years. The study, led by Dr. Eugenia Costa-Giomi from the University of Texas at

Austin, divided the children into a control group and an experimental group and gave the

experimental group piano lessons for three years at no cost (Costa-Giomi 142). Other than the

music instruction, both groups were treated the same. Costa-Giomi’s study found that, after

three years, the experimental group had a significant increase in self-esteem in comparison to the

control group (Costa-Giomi 144). This falls in line with information reported by Donald

DeMoulin, which was interpreted by Michelle Bryant that musical activities were “one of the

two best methods to enhance personal development” (Bryant). Students have cited music as an

emotional pick-me-up, as well as an outlet for them to grow as a person (Campbell 230).

Furthermore, it has been found that musicians have an increased corpus callosum density, which

means that “information will be shared between both cerebral hemispheres more efficiently and

therefore any skill that uses both hemispheres, such as reading, should be facilitated” (Bryant).

In essence, participating in music has numerous benefits, both mental, emotional, and physical.

Despite such positive feedback, schools have to make decisions about handling music

education while under financial or academic stress. One female essay writer complained about

the unfair financial constraints faced by music education, writing, “I think that it is unfair how

just every sport gets money no matter what while the music department is always questioned”

(Campbell 231). Admittedly, a music program is an expensive one to maintain – not only is

purchasing the required instruments a massive expenditure, but fees associated with maintaining

a program also cause financial strain (McDaniel). Understandably, the amount of a school

budget consumed by music studies will vary, depending on the depth and scale of the program.

Where one school might spend $20,000, another school district may spend close to $7 million

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(Bryant). In an economy that many still consider to have not fully recovered from the economic

recession of 2008, $7 million is a massive expenditure to accommodate, and school boards are

having a much harder time trying to justify such an allowance.

In addition to the price of music programs, some schools are also under a different type

of pressure that can affect music programs. Signed into law in 2002, the No Child Left Behind

education law highlights a set of benchmarks for reading and arithmetic that schools need to

meet, or else be faced with fines (Dillon). In order to obey this law, schools across the nation

have scrambled to adapt, trimming programs wherever necessary to boost performance in the key

areas that No Child Left Behind focuses on. In a New York Times article published in 2006, the

president of the Washington-based Center on Education Policy is quoted as saying “Narrowing

the curriculum has clearly become a nationwide pattern” (Dillon). The article goes on to

examine a survey by the Center on Education Policy, reporting that roughly 70% of school

districts across the nation have reduced instructional time for any subject non-essential to

fulfilling No Child Left Behind, including history, social studies, music or science. Of these

subjects, only music is a subject that is oft considered non-academic or superlative. In fact, some

people consider time spent in music classes to simply be wasted time; students could instead be

spending the time used for music instruction and practice for learning and studying math and

reading instead (Bryant). Furthermore, while it has been claimed that music helps improve

academic performance, Costa-Giomi’s study found that there was not a significant improvement

in academic scores for the experimental group over the control group during the three years that

the study was held (Costa-Giomi 146). Likewise, similar information regarding middle school

students was reported in an article from Michelle Bryant examining a 2010 study by K. O.

Davenport. Bryant wrote that “participation in musical activities was not associated with better

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academic performance for the middle school children who were studied by Davenport (2010)”

(Bryant). Here, it stands to reason that music education holds no benefit for schools, neither

positively influencing academic scores, nor easing the financial strain faced by school districts.

As such, there’s no benefit for music, so why is it a practice that continues to be taught in

schools?

Subscribing to the argument that music has no benefit for grades is a treacherous one, and

can easily lead to the use of the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy1 (Rugnetta). If one were to focus

only on the information reported by Bryant and Costa-Giomi about middle school aged students,

stating that there was not any significant change in scores between the musicians and non-

musicians, they should also have to take note of the details of these reports. Costa-Giomi’s

report informs readers that, while there is no statistically significant difference for the two groups

from a scientifically experimental point of view—comparing the two yields a 9% chance of

chance variables affecting the results, with a significant difference requiring 5% or less—there

still appears to be a positive correlation between music and grades (145). In addition, Bryant also

examines further data from Davenport and finds that, while middle school students did not have

a significant difference, the same cannot be said for students in high school. In fact, there is a

statistically significant difference at the high school level for students enrolled in music classes

versus non-musician students in both algebra and English, as measured by scores on the

Maryland High School Assessment (HSA) Algebra and HAS English tests (Davenport 58-60).

Furthermore, Davenport reports that there is also a statistically significant difference in the

1
A Texas Sharpshooter fallacy is a fallacious argument based around a very specific set of
information and ignores any outlying or contradicting information. Its use may be related to
confirmation bias (Rugnetta).

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attendance rate for high school musicians versus non-musicians, a difference that was not

considered statistically significant at the middle school level (58, 61). This data suggests that

music education in schools does have a positive impact on academic performance, if only at the

high school level. However, this data could be interpreted in a manner that suggests that “the

effect of music training on academics may simply need more time to be manifested” (Bryant).

This falls in line with Costa-Giomi’s finding of no statistical significance in her study, as the

subjects in this study were all nine years old at the beginning of the study, and also had not

received any formal musical training beforehand (142). Assuming that the high school

participants in Davenport’s report had also participated in music classes in middle school, which

for high school seniors would mean a music participation span of six to seven years, this

suggests that Costa-Giomi’s study did not run long enough to find a statistical significance. This

implies that students need to participate in music for more than three years to reap any academic

benefits. For school systems with strong music programs that span middle school and high

school, this is good news. Thanks to the foundation set by middle school music instruction, high

school music students reap academic benefits that are quite noticeable in comparison to their

non-musician peers, and due to the apparent time window required for the benefits to manifest,

any removal of a middle school music curriculum would cause the benefits to falter at the high

school level, ensuring that both programs must exist in tandem for success.

However, there still remains the financial funding issue, as operating an in-school music

program is still an expensive endeavor. Thankfully, there are answers to this question. In the

April 2013 issue of the Journal of Research in Music Education, there is an article that focuses

on the decision-making process of a school district in Lekbery, Michigan in regards to keeping or

cutting music education. Authored by Marci L. Major, the article focuses on how the Lekbery

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School District was able to sustain its music program during the rocky economic period from

2000-2010. What is important to note is that Michigan’s school funding system allocates funds

to districts based on student population size, as this is central to some methods used by Lekbery

to save and raise money to support music (Major 9). In order to avoid accumulating debt, the

school district had to look at ways to save money while keeping interest high enough to attract

new residents as well as keep the existing residents. In order to save money, the district would

spend money, usually for advertising of music events. By increasing marketing of music events

held by the district schools, Lekbery was able to not only retain current students and attract new

students, but also receive revenue by charging admission fees for school events (Major 13).

Other methods employed by the district include consolidating and condensing programs to

reduce cost, as well as host fundraising events (Major 15). A few of these methods are also

endorsed by Bryant, who offers up many solutions to alleviate financial burden. While

fundraising may be an obvious solution, she says that music programs should not hesitate to be

creative. Selling candy is a popular choice, but other methods endorsed by Bryant include

partnering with local businesses, charging admission, and even holding car washes (Bryant).

However, she also mentions that music programs should also find ways to cut costs internally,

whether by finding cheaper deals for purchasing music, or even refusing to rent out or supply

instruments to students as a last resort (Bryant). While these may be unwanted answers to the

problem, they may be necessary to ensure that music programs survive for the enrichment of the

students who participate within them.

The President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities (PCAH) released a document

in May of 2011 in which the committee investigates many ways to reinvest in the arts. The

committee believes that the arts are integral to a wholesome education for America’s students,

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and while “the schools with students who could most benefit from the documented advantages of

arts strategies are often those that either do not recognize the benefits of arts education or do not

have the resources to provide it to their students” (President's Committee 11), it is obvious that

nationwide, music education is in an interesting situation. Still recovering from economic

troubles, the nation’s schools have had to make decisions on where to save money, and where to

spend it. While music education has been a main target for cuts, it is clear to see that teaching

music in public schools provides greater benefits than the costs could ever outweigh; praised by

DeMoulin as one of the best developmental activities for students to partake in (297), music

programs can provide a source of motivation for students, promote personal development, and

improve community involvement with schools. With these benefits, there should never be any

fear about music disappearing from America’s schools.

Word count: 2409

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Works Cited

Bryant, Michelle. "To Cut or Not To Cut - On Cutting Elective Music Education In Public

Schools To Conserve Funds." 2 May 2011. OpEdNews.com. Web. 20 Apr 2015.

Campbell, Pratricia S., et al. "Adolescents' Expressed Meanings of Music in and Out of School."

Journal of Research in Music Education 55.3 (2007): 220-36. JSTOR. Web. 29 Mar

2015.

Costa-Giomi, Eugenia. "Effects Of Three Years Of Piano Instruction On Children's Academic

Acievement, School Performance And Self-Esteem." Psychology Of Music 32.2 (2004):

139-52. Sage Journals. Web. 30 Mar 2015.

Davenport, Kevin O. "The Effects of Participation in School Instrumental Music Programs On

Student Academic Achievement and School Attendance." ProQuest LLC (2010). Web.

29 Apr. 2015.

DeMoulin, Donald. "Examining the Impact of Extra-Curricular Activities in the Personal

Development of 149 High School Seniors." Journal of Instructional Psychology (2002):

297-304. ebooks on ESBCOhost. Web. 28 Apr. 2015.

Dillon, Sam. "Schools Cut Back Subjects to Push Reading and Math." 26 March 2006. The New

York Times. Web. 24 Apr 2015.

Major, Marci L. "How They Decide: A Case Study Examining the Decision-Making Pocess for

Keeping or Cutting Music in a K-12 Public School District." Journal of Research in

Music Education 61.1 (2013): 5-25. ebooks on EBSCOhost. Web. 29 Mar. 2015.

McDaniel, Byrd. "Negatives of Music in School." n.d. eHow. Web. 25 Apr. 2015.

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President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. Reinvesting in Arts Education: Winning

America's Future through Creative Schools. Washington, DC, 2011. Web. 3 Apr. 2015.

The Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy | Idea Channel | PBS Digital Studios. By Mike Rugnetta. Dir.

Morgan Crossley. Prod. Andrew Kornhaber. PBS Digital Studios, 2015. Web. 29 Apr.

2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tcBsryYd6s>.

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