Psychology Today Magazine advertises on the Huffington Post. In a recent article, PT reportson how important music education can be for brain development, as well as cognitive and emotional growth for children. Perhaps child psychologists and educators should be talking more. So why has the Department of Education and Arne Duncan and friends who care so much about children implemented policies that cut music and the arts from schools in favor of high stakes testing. It is like feeding junk food to a child and then expecting him or her to be healthy. Hiring music instructors and teaching children music would be a huge boost for test scores because math and reading as well as nurturing the soul and overall health and anxiety would also be a valuable outcome. However, it appears that all the talk these days is about test scores and standardized testing, and those all important “performance reviews” for teachers. Today’s aka homeless children, shows us how well the no excuses policies have worked. The NYT reporter shines a bright spotlight on the lives of the 22,000 homeless children in the city. Meanwhile, their teachers are scrambling to let them know there are “no excuses” and a number on a bubble in test will determine whether his or her teacher will be fired. A few music lessons and a place to escape might be a good alternative to drill and kill on meaningless fill in the bubble sheets and scripted curriculum. It would cost the taxpayers a lot less on the front end and the back end, but then again, Pearson, Bill Gates and all those other philanthropic billionaires might feel like the hip, rock and rollers are getting too much of the limelight. Perhaps one day, artists like Bruce Springsteen, all musicians will stand up and defend the one thing that saved their lives when they realized they just weren’t that into academics and bubble in tests.
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