Westminster and Devos or . . . Are We Not Musicians?

Follow up to this article:

DeVos, Privatization and the Future of Music Educators

Only slightly off topic . . . or perhaps very relevant given the career choice of many Westminster Choir College students. Slightly less relevant to the struggle to save Westminster Choir College . . . but perhaps very relevant to the individual lives of many current students and a very significant proportion (wonder if that has been studied) Westminster alums . . . the confirmation of DeVos as Secretary of Education. I went googling Music Devos and did not come up with much. NAFME had a page where they petitioned just trying to get her to answer some questions and a brief exchange between her and Sanders about music. Her answers were fluffly - insubstantial - not demonstrating any real interest or knowledge about music or music educaition. https://www.nafme.org/nafme-members-receive-answers-music-education-questions-confirmation-hearing-betsy-devos/

Many believe DeVos will dismantle public education, some suggest completely. She is not alone in the quest to shift the control of public education (and the billions spent on it) from public to privatized and Charter School system. Many of the Senators that voted against her - NJ's own Booker included - have worked with her on Charter endeavors in the past.

The shift has been bipartisan with many overwhelmingly Democratically controlled cities (not the least of which Chicago) have been the biggest transformations to a more privatized system.

So how does this all affect the current student body? How does it affect the alumni - likely 1000s who are employed by public school systems and presumably charter systems too. An awesome discussion it would be to get public school teachers to share their experience as well as private charter school teachers. This discussion could inform the current students also about how to chart their education careers. And it might arouse some interest in monitoring and commenting on the developments affecting public education. It might even become important to fight for future jobs by advocating for protection of institutions that could come under Devoid-ment,
(The current Westminster situation suggests that we should get much better at monitoring and being proactive on situations - especially as fast as things are moving right now.) Would be curious to know what the thought process is for alums in all educational positions on the future of the profession of music - if it will be impacted by shifts in political power - or given social and economic developments - even war. It seems like everyone has done a real good job at trying to keep the issue of Westminster disconnected from the political environment under which it has transpired. But is that the most wise thing to do? There is time to focus and keep extraneous issues out of discussion when directly confronting the facts (or lack there of) of the situation with Westminster campus possible closing. But there is also time to explore the possible connections between what is happening at Westminster - which directly is harming the future of music education in the country and world - but what other things going on are having parallel deleterious impact on the future of this profession.
Impoverished cities across the US struggle to maintain the barest minimum of music programs, often having to rely on grants and donations to eek by. There are many organizations like NAFME out there that fight for greater support for music in public education. At the risk of sparking discussion, maybe even debate, I would like to invite commentary on this broader topic. Are the institutions that the music profession depends upon endangered? What are the experiences of public school teachers, teachers at private and publicly supported charter schools? What are your ideas and thoughts about what the future will be - short and long term - if things will get worse - how bad and for how long - etc.? For students - are you thinking about the developments and how they might impact future prospects? Are you angling at all - accordingly?

And - the general question - is what is happening to Westminster part of an over all dissolving of support for the highest quality of music education? Your thoughts . . . One bit of feedback I received from Mitchell Robinson, Associate Professor and Chair of Music Education at Michigan State University, who is active in struggles around school privatization and blogs from http://www.eclectablog.com/author/mitchell-robinson is as follows: "Private K-12 schools tend to offer less music and the arts than public schools, so the more private the system becomes, the less pervasive music will be in schools. I imagine that private teachers will take on more of the burden for providing music instruction to children, with the inevitable socio economic barriers that implies--the wealthy's kids will have access, poor kids will not."