Building Support for Music Education: A Practical Guide

Direct the campaign toward achieving the specific objectives you have set for your program. Your plan will need to work on several levels, just as the forces affecting school music work on several levels.

To meet budget problems that affect the school system in general, plan to concentrate on PR and political action. If the problem is specifically targeted at music, concentrate on direct action toward the decision making level dealing with the problem; adjust as the situation changes.

To gather public support, plan to stress the goals set for your program and use the sample press releases and other materials in part 4 of this guide. Direct your efforts to helping the public (especially critical segments of the public) understand the benefits of music education.

What Do You Do Now?

Addressing the problems that face school music can be a long and complex process. Getting a school district to hire more music specialists, for example, might involve collecting supporting material from MENC's The National Standards (www.menc.org) and the recommendations of the state education department, developing a rationale for increasing the amount of instruction delivered by music specialists rather than by classroom teachers, and getting parents and others to express an active role in supporting school music.

Even if your music program is in great shape, you must build and maintain a base of support. Do this by offering your students the broadest and best music education possible, and by letting the public, parents, and administration know about it. Here are tips to sustain the program's visibility and grow support and understanding for the program:

Be sure your students and parents understand about the importance of music education and about the lifelong knowledge and skills your students are gaining. Use a variety of means to do this, including providing information at performances, at meetings of parents, and through the media. Also,use the research-based information available at "Build Your Case" at SupportMusic.com.

Be sure that your school and district administrators and your school board members understand the value of your program. Invite them to attend your programs, to visit classes, to open concerts, and to present student awards. Also, provide them with reports at least once a year on the needs, goals, and values of the music program.

Write thank you notes to decision makers for their support. Ask students and parents to do the same.

Make sure that the purpose of music instruction in your schools is expressed in terms of its value to the students. Support for music suffers if the program is seen as ego gratification for the teachers.

And that is just the beginning. Getting principals and other administrators to put forth a favorable recommendation to the school board at budget time requires persistent, diplomatic and careful work. And then, of course, the funds to hire new teachers need to be found. If you want to improve any aspect of your music program, you will have to engage in careful, intelligent, and persistent work.

To Meet Budget Problems...
If your school district faces funding cuts that are applied evenly across the board, join forces with other organizations, such as the PTA, that support the general quality of your schools. Your efforts must:

Make a concerted attempt to reach and influence those with power over the budget as a whole and build a case that music is vital element of a quality education for all children.

Gather support from parents, grandparents and other members of the community.

If your music program has been singled out for budget rollbacks, vigorously communicate the benefits of music toward students success and achievement; in terms of effectiveness and efficiency, music programs are a value.

Contact music supervisors, the superintendent, and the school board, and convince them of the importance of maintaining funding for the music program. (Go through the established decision-making structure).

Gain the support of citizens, principals, and other teachers—all those to whom the decision makers turn for information and opinion. Templates for presentations to budget committees and school boards are available in the Music Educator Advocacy Toolkit available as downloadable documents at www.amc-music.org (also available as link at the Introduction page to this section.)

To Pursue Legislative Action...
Each music education advocacy group represents an informal, cooperative effort rather than a formal organization with any legal standing. Advocacy groups may ant to:

• Identify and reach those with the power to solve your problems.
• Keep all legislators informed of and sympathetic to the cause of music education.
• Build and maintain public support, which provides by far the best argument for reaching public servants.
• Use the petition in appendix 2 to gather signatures and persuade decision makers that public support exists for music education.

To Gather Public Support...
If your program is successful, well established, and faces no current emergencies in funding or legislation, congratulations! Even with this type of success, however, a lack of support from all the members of the school system and of the wider community may lead to eventual trouble. If you have identified any erosion in your base of support, take time to fix them now. Maintaining a program from a position of high visibility and quality does not come naturally; support and sustained funding is achieved through deliberate actions by interested citizens. Here are a few tips:

• Work toward educating all the residents in your community at large about the value and purposes of music in our schools. Use local media in good times and challenging times; profile the work of students - current and program graduates; speak at community service clubs about the program and its benefits to young people in the community.
• Encourage music educators to work more effectively with their music and non-music colleagues to achieve quality education for all children.
• Encourage music educators to participate in district-wide task forces and actively engage in district and school management issues; by their presence and participation, they represent music's vital role in the core curriculum.
• Work with the entire music community to maintain better contact with the community at large. Establish working committee that helps music teachers promote concerts, student activities.
• Contact specific portions of the community at large, such as merchants or business executives, directly or through appropriate community organizations.

Mapping the Power Structure

Before you start to work directly with your local leaders, you will have to determine which legislative or administrative bodies hold the specific power to improve the music program. You need, in other words, to construct a table of organization. Your work with these groups will be better if you answer three questions about each group:

Who are the most influential individuals (committee chairs, senior members, or other respected figures)?

When and where can they be contacted? You will need to know the calendar of each legislative or administrative body.

To whom are they responsible? You should gain support from the constituents of elected officials or the superiors of middle-level officials—and you should use this support as a point in your favor.

Table of Organization

City, County, or Parish Administration
Calendar (when are they in session) _______________________________
Extent of authority ______________________________________________

Elected officials:
Name: ________________________________________________________
Title: _________________________________________________________

Constituency: __________________________________________________
E-MAIL:

Name: ________________________________________________________
Title: _________________________________________________________

Constituency: __________________________________________________
E-MAIL:

Name: ________________________________________________________
Title: _________________________________________________________

Constituency: __________________________________________________
E-MAIL:

Appointed officials:
Name: ________________________________________________________
Title: _________________________________________________________

Supervisor: ____________________________________________________
E-MAIL:

Name: ________________________________________________________
Title: _________________________________________________________

Supervisor: ____________________________________________________
E-MAIL:

Name: ________________________________________________________
Title: _________________________________________________________

Supervisor: ____________________________________________________
E-MAIL:

Local School Board
Calendar (when are they in session) _______________________________

Extent of authority ______________________________________________

Personnel
Name: ________________________________________________________
District or at large? ____________________ Term of office: _________
Address: ______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
PHONE: E-MAIL:

Name: ________________________________________________________
District or at large? ____________________ Term of office: _________
Address: ______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
PHONE: E-MAIL:

Name: ________________________________________________________
District or at large? ____________________ Term of office: _________
Address: ______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
PHONE: E-MAIL:

Getting the Facts Down

Develop a fact sheet about your issues; use the "Build Your Case" section of SupportMusic.com. Your fact sheet outlines information for your targeted efforts that can be used as a basis for all of your groups' letters, speeches, and releases. Make certain that it includes:

• A line that identifies your music education advocacy group; a formal name like "Your Home Town Music Coalition" goes along way in communicating your seriousness of purpose.
• A statement of practical philosophy—why music education is so important to young people. Craft a statement that feels right to your team, use ideas and information available at "Build Your Case" at SupportMusic.com
• A description of the current state of music education in your community; how it can improve to meet the needs of children and young people.
• A list of the goals that you have set for the school music program. You can link these goals to the National Standards at www.menc.org.
• A summary of your basic strategy, written in general terms (a "call to arms" rather than a detailed course of action).

Workers in your campaign will likely use this fact sheet as their single most important source of information—so you need to pay special attention to the accuracy of every detail that it contains.

AND NOW, FOR THE LOVE OF MUSIC AND FOR THE JOY OF SHARING IT WITH THE NEXT GENERATION, ROLL UP YOUR SLEEVES AND GET TO WORK - HAVE FUN WITH YOUR NEIGHBORS, COLLEAGUES AND FRIENDS MAKING SURE THAT MUSIC IS A VITAL PART OF A QUALITY EDUCATION FOR ALL CHILDREN - ESPECIALLY THOSE IN YOUR COMMUNITY.