It's out! Teachers College Press has released our new book, What Every Principal Needs to Know to Create Equitable and Excellent Schools, edited by George Theoharis and Jeff Brooks.
My chapter is titled, "Music Teaching and Learning in a Time of Reform"--here's a brief excerpt:
Music in the public school curriculum is at a precarious point. Indeed, one author has described the place of school music as teetering at a veritable “tipping point.” Borrowing from Malcolm Gladwell’s book of the same name, Kratus (2007) identifies the need for “sticky” ideas in music education that will attract new students and new audiences, lest we see the divide between music and “school music” grow even wider and deeper. A 2006 survey by the Center on Education Policy, an independent education policy think tank, found that since the passage of NCLB in 2001, 71% of the nation's 15,000 school districts had reduced the hours of instructional time spent on history, music and other subjects to open up more time for reading and math (Dillon, 2006).
This narrowing of the public school curriculum has been accompanied by an increased emphasis on standardized testing, especially in the subject areas of math and reading, in a back-to-basics movement that has threatened to alter the very fabric of American public education.
For more information, click on the picture of the book cover to go to the Teachers College Press web page about the book.
