Music Education Needs in Southern Pennsylvania and Northern Delaware
Music education plays a crucial role in student development, offering proven benefits in learning and creativity. Despite these advantages, support for music education in our service area—southern Pennsylvania and northern Delaware—remains insufficient, with over 10% of students lacking access to music programs.
Recently, on June 12, 2024, educators from the Pennsylvania Music Educators Association (PMEA) rallied to federal legislators for increased support. This advocacy is critical as both state and federal levels historically lack awareness of music education's importance.
But there’s also more to it than meets the eye than just simple lack of awareness. Why are government boards everywhere proposing budget cuts that will disproportionately impact music departments? What is the state of music education in and around our service area?
This resource will detail statistics and testimonies on how and why music education is devalued, all bringing to light the scale of the need to bring more and better music education in our service area - through touching on how many students play and have access to music, the states of music education in our service area, the state of music education in schools serving marginalized communities, the reasons students leave music playing, and a brief overview on what aspiring advocates can do to make a tangible difference in music education in our service area.
How many school-aged children in and around our service area play music?
For context, Pennsylvania had over 1.7 million students in 2022, 53% of which are enrolled in music. As of 2019, all children in Pennsylvania between kindergarten age or age 6, until either age 18 or graduation from a high school are required to be enrolled in a school. In Pennsylvania, 16% of schools do not have access to arts and music education and 11% of students (over 187,000 students) do not have access to either types of classes.
In Pennsylvania, despite a mandatory requirement for school enrollment from kindergarten through high school for all of its 1.7 million students, 47% of the state’s students are not enrolled in music, and 16% of schools do not offer arts or music education, affecting over 187,000 students. Delaware, with a smaller student population of 123,000 the same year, faces similar challenges, with 39% of students not enrolled in music, and there are 191 total schools that offer music in that state. As there are at least 200 schools in Delaware, this totals to around 5% of schools without access to music.
What is the overall state of music education in our service area?
In Pennsylvania, 72% of elementary school students and 79% of middle school students are enrolled in music, but drops off drastically in high school, where only 16% of students are enrolled in music. In Delaware, the dropoff is also drastic; while 96% of elementary school students in the state are enrolled in music, less than half of middle school students and less than a fifth of high school students are enrolled. Overall music enrollment is steadily declining in the state - 59% of students in Delaware were enrolled in music in 2023, down from 63% four years prior.
The primary pressure exacerbating these challenges of enrollment is financial cuts to music departments. State governments often provide less funding to arts and music departments than other core subjects; as a result, schools across Pennsylvania and Delaware have faced and/or are facing cuts to arts and music departments.
Reactions to these cuts are almost universally negative among music students, teachers, and a not insignificant amount of board members. Below are some examples of schools who have experienced either proposal and/or enactment of cuts to the music departments:
Christina School District - Northern Delaware
Some schools, like Christina School District, face budget deficits, and with arts and music education being less valued than other core subjects, arts and music are often one of the first subjects to be cut.
Christina School District in northern Delaware voted to direct administration to pursue cuts to certain programs in May of 2020, including its elementary school music program, in response to its predicted $10 million budget deficit. This was a move that board member Claire O’Neal vehemently opposed and tried successfully to enact an amendment that would exempt the elementary school music and strings program from such cuts. “...If we go forward, and people don’t follow through on their obligation to vote on the referendum, then it’s our fiduciary duty to make ends meet,” O’Neal said about the then-future referendum vote.
Fortunately, at the referendum vote, which took place on June 9th, the elementary school music program was spared, with 65 percent support from voters in the district, but even the proposal of music cuts is an important sign of our service area’s lack of adequate music education.
Cook-Wissahickon Elementary School - Philadelphia, PA
Cook-Wissahickon Elementary School is another school that had students face the tough reality of music being cut because of a lack of financial resources. Due to a $304 million budget shortfall, the Philadelphia school was forced to cut its music program for the 2013-14 school year.
Ravi, a fifth grader at the school, used to receive music instruction at the school through the Class Itinerant Music Teachers (CMIT) program, but because of the budget shortfall, that program was removed. "Music is really a way for me to express myself. Missing my music classes would be really bad for me because it gives me extra time to practice. My practice time is already so limited,” Ravi said. "It's difficult to imagine going back to school next year with no music."
Along with removing students from the CMIT, some teachers were laid off. Hugh Williamson, who taught Ravi for two years, falls in that group. "We were expecting this so I wasn't really surprised. I'm more disappointed for our students because music is a big part of their school life. For some of the kids it’s the reason they go to school," Williamson said.
Elizabethtown School District - Lancaster County, PA
The Elizabethtown School District board considered dropping all non-mandated programs, which included its music programs, to try to reduce the amount of money paid by taxpayers. After the hearing from parents and students, however, the board decided to not cut any of the non-mandated programs and agreed to find a different way to balance the budget.
Pottstown Area School District - Pottstown, PA
For the 2021-22 school year, the Pottstown Area School District chose to cut its district music program to reduce its projected $244,000 deficit and to accommodate for the state’s “chronic underfunding” of the district, providing $13 million less in funding to the district that year.
While many schools choose to cut their music departments entirely in the case of a lack of resources, among the schools who value their music departments, they are pressured to resort to peculiar solutions. Some resort to using teachers from other buildings, like Selinsgrove High School. Others like the Bienen School of Music in Illinois require students to pay for the instruments themselves, sometimes due to either a lack of overall funding and/or a lack of loan instruments, which are often given to students who can’t pay for their own instruments. One school, Pocahontas County High School in West Virginia, even had the marching band students choose to teach themselves since the last instructor they had quit for another teaching position.
Whatever the reason, the sheer amount of schools that choose to cut music departments show how music is important to many of their students and students’ parents.
What is the cost of music?
Much of the cost of music education in any state is at the whim of state spending, and Pennsylvania is no exception. As of 2024, Pennsylvania’s total spending on school districts is only 38% - the national median is 47% - putting the state 44th in the country. As a result of the state government’s lackluster funding, schools are forced to pay the price through property taxes. The amount of taxes paid vary from area to area in PA, creating inequalities of the quality of music and arts education. And until local and national governments enact by increasing their spending on music, communities are faced with this responsibility.
Despite some people’s assumptions that music education is expensive, it objectively isn’t - a country-wide NAMM Foundation study found that the average per music student spending for music programs in the country is at most $368. But in terms of overall music program spending, a whopping 85.4% was spent on music educator salaries, and other aspects of music education, like supplies and administration, are the remaining 14.6%. This creates a problem with declaring that music education is not expensive - governments consider salaries are much more important than high-quality supplies for the students. And with this lack of spending on aspects other than salaries, the students need to pay for the costs themselves.
On the teachers’ side, though, there are a lot of costs involved. Music teacher Barbie Wong states how music teachers “are paid by the hour, but they are not like the hourly employees you see at the grocery store or cafe. That’s because once the cashier and barista clock out from their jobs, they are done with work. Once your child’s music lesson is over, however, their music teacher is not done with their job.” Wong details how unpaid aspects like “communicating with parents, recital costs, studio upkeep and teacher training” are also time spent by music teachers. In her case, through 2020, she spent a total of 258 hours and earned only $3,323.
In short, while music education is objectively inexpensive, it isn’t the case for every student or teacher, and costs may very well vary. This emphasizes the importance of a universal threshold for how much should be spent on musical education, one that needs to also take account for marginalized groups and areas. These groups tend to more likely lack music education.
What about schools primarily serving marginalized groups?
In our service area, disparities in music education access are evident, particularly in schools serving marginalized communities.
In terms of underrepresented ethnicities, music and arts departments still have a long way to go to amplify these voices, with several studies confirming that African-Americans, males, disabled students, students in poverty, students from urban schools and students less proficient in English were less likely to receive music and arts education opportunities. For example, in Philadelphia, out of the 51 schools without access to instrumental music education, 50 of them have a lower-than-average amount of white students.
Even if a school has a diverse music program, it can benefit to have music teachers of non-white ethnicities, something many music programs do not have. There are huge imbalances between the amount of students in music education and music educators, including among Hispanic and Latine students. While 30% of music education students are Hispanic/Latine, they comprise only 9% of music educators. This lack of diversity in music educators echoes a similar pattern across teachers in general, where in many states, there is too much of a lack of diversity. As of 2022, Pennsylvania, for instance, where less than 7% of teachers are people of color, has over a third of schools with only white teachers. That same year, Delaware fared slightly better, where around 22% of teachers are teachers of color, most of them consisting of African-American and Latine teachers. For students of color, seeing a teacher that looks like them helps them feel represented and can attract them to the music education field itself.
But not every school without much music funding requests music instruction. Staff like Principal Richard Gordman IV of Paul Robeson High School for Human Services sometimes cite preferring to use resources on basic supplies and lowering class sizes, and that music education is expensive. He asked WHYY, “How do you balance such an expensive offering with the other budget priorities you have to address to effectively run your schools?” He prefers to invest in art rather than music because art is “less of a headache because it just involves “going online and buying resources” while music requires “extensive instrument maintenance”. Instances like these show how music is strongly devalued throughout our service area, but in many cases, low spending on music should not be blamed on the schools. Many schools want music, but the process of getting a music department and budgeting for it can be a long, complicated process.
What are the reasons students quit music?
There is not much information on the reasons students quit music in our service area, but there are patterns throughout our country and the world that we can look upon as guiding points for our mission. As a whole, there are many reasons why students quit music, and it’s essential for governments and schools to look at these patterns in order to make music education more enjoyable and accessible.
Some of the reasons students quit music don’t have to do with the music department itself, but with factors outside the department. Many times when students quit making music take place when significant grade bumps occur. In the realm of band programs, the transition between sixth and seventh grade and between eighth and ninth grade are two of the highest rates of band attrition. Another study, focused on students in the United Kingdom and Germany, indirectly confirmed high schools’ impacts on music involvement by discovering how most students quit by the time they are 15 to 17 years old, and how half of all students quit all musical activities by the time they turn 17. These transitions between grades signify a significant boost in homework, clubs, and other school obligations. With not every student wishing to pursue music, this can result in a lesser desire to participate.
While many students stop playing music in a few significant moments in their education, the reasons these students leave music education are more than many. Multiple studies cite motives like scheduling conflicts, having lower motivation to participate, having less musical activities in the home, and poor relationships with graduate assistants (for college students). Individual music teachers often hear parents and students state common reasons for them or their kids leave music, including reasons like, “I don’t like to play my instrument”, “I’m not very musical”, and other reasons. Dealing with the reasons students quit music education can be challenging - but to ensure that music is a more valuable experience, teachers and government politicians should work together to make sure students get the musical training they need
It also benefits to improve the experience of current music students who want to keep playing, so they have more and more reasons to stay and experiences to teach other potential students about.
What can people do to address these needs?
From all the statistics and testimonies in this resource, it’s no wonder that music education in and around Southeastern Pennsylvania and northern Delaware has a long way to go. Music and other arts subjects are often the first subjects to be cut when budgets are low, and sometimes no one other than school board members have a say in what school subjects are kept or cut. Luckily, there are ways anyone, from students to allies to parents, can advocate for not just better investment in music education, but also the benefits of music.
One of the easiest things someone can do is donate any musical instruments and/or equipment to any nearby educational music program in need. Music departments are often not prioritized for funding and resources, so they usually rely on money from communities and students to stay afloat. Additionally, education on the benefits of music can persuade these incoming and current students to continue with music and teachers to advocate to governments to provide more resources for music departments.
People can also advocate for the arts - or even music itself - to be a core subject. There is a new acronym proposed by advocates, called “STEAM” (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics). Unlike the more traditional STEM acronym, STEAM calls for arts to be a part of the core school curriculum, which has for years centered on mostly STEM subjects. Thaddeus Turner, co-founder of Totem Star, commented on the benefits of STEAM, including how like science, it encourages using mathematical and reading skills. “It [music] looks like it’s fun; it looks easy, so how could it be educational?” Turner says. “How could it be science? How could it be math? Well, it is all of that. You have to count; you’ve got to learn music theory, read and calculate. It is a language all unto itself.”
If someone knows of a school that is proposing cuts to music departments, they can also take part in protests and advocate on behalf of students and students’ parents. Students and parents often are forced to motivate themselves to advocate against these department cuts due to little government response, like Edinboro University student Dylan Hollingsworth. He said of his now-closed Change.org petition in response to Edinboro cutting music majors, “I’m passionate about this. I want to show my support for the (music) department. It's been like a home to me for the last three years.” Students enrolled in music are in full knowledge of the importance of keeping music, so it is essential for non-students to bring music students the opportunity to study a subject that has massive benefits for everyone.
No one is able to rely on a small group of people to spark change - a diversity of people and their perspectives on the lack of awareness of the dismal state of music education in our service area is needed to make a difference. The needs of better music education in our service area come from a variety of variables, including needed more funding for arts as a whole, especially towards groups who are more likely to live in areas with little access to music education.
Our service area needs as many supporters as possible from a variety of backgrounds as we all have different perspectives on how music education has impacted us. Changes in our service area’s music education should take place locally and nationally to make the world of music a better place for all students.