I hear music and so should you.

I am so very sick of hearing about cuts to instrumental music! Every single level of the DPS is suffering for lack of funding! Why do all of these people think they are special or somehow immune to these cutbacks? How is music more important that having proper staffing for Math, Science or Language Arts?

We are losing everything from music programs to vocational programs in our schools. We have programs that prepare non-college bound students to earn a living that are being cut. Programs to teach kids how to take care of themselves are being cut. Drafting, electronics, welding, manufacturing, business, EVERYONE is suffering! Enough already about instrumental music! Go buy your kid a saxophone and pay for lessons if you so damn upset about it!

As far as I am concerned, if given a choice between keeping two science teachers in the class room vs. the hundreds of thousands of dollars we spend to maintain musical instruments, than I say its time for either the music program to go or to have the parents pony up the money for their own instruments! That’s about what we spend every year to maintain musical instruments, the cost of two 5 year teachers. The choice is simple to me!

Maybe we need to make the instrumental music programs intramural like a sports team or cheerleading. That way we can get the cost off of the tax payers and where it belongs, on the parents!

The bottom like is that you music people started whining about cuts before they even posted the layoffs. Add to this the fact that we are negotiating a contract and we have no idea who is actually staying or going and we have much to do about NOTHING!

Maybe we can talk the district genius’s over at TenEyke to divert some money from new football stadiums to some of these worthwhile programs our kids REALLY benefit from!

--by Enough Already! on 6/2/08   Lives: Dearborn  

Fordson has failed 4 years in a row, Parents has the right to choose another school and the district must pay for their transportations, this is the Federal law, parents should check this with Lansing and force DPS to follow the rules, this is phase two for failing school such as Fordson. Call Lansing with your concerns.

--by Daisy on 6/2/08   Lives: Dearborn  

Enough Already , Via his syntax is all over gibb's web site. Lots of phony names, a real critic of Fordson BUT never gives his real name. Has all the answers but hides behind anonymity. Encourages everyone else to come forward except himself.

--by Fordson colleague on 6/3/08   Lives: Detroit area  

Fordson colleague:

OK, so what is your point? If the shoe fits, wear it! It’s not like the info. Is un-true or made up. These are matters of record we are talking about.

Maybe you could start by addressing some of the sited incidents.

By the way, we didn’t catch your name..........

--by You’re a typical DPS Hypocrite on 6/3/08   Lives: Dearborn  

Parents should have the right to chose a musical education for their children.. or not......in addition the district needs to support parents who chose music and provide whatever it can (central location for music, transportation, school of choice, or whatever).
Look not all students chose sports and need a place shine...but I agree...... make a decision once and for all and then LEAVE IT

--by right to chose on 6/3/08   Lives: Dearborn  

I can't imagine how dropping instrumental music will save money. There isn't any subject other than band or orchestra that putting 60+ kids in one classroom with one teacher at one time is ok. While equity between east side and west side programs would be ideal, it is the westside schools namely Bryant and Dearborn High where the music teachers really pack the rooms.

--by chel on 6/4/08   Lives: Dearborn  

Why don't they cut gym. Middle school gym daily for 3 years is not a state requirement. Couldn't gym be an elective? Then you wouldn't have 4 to 5 gym teachers at each middle school. Check out Plymouth Canton schools, they use it as an elective and have 2 gym teachers in each middle school.

--by Tractor Girl on 6/4/08   Lives: USA  

DPS should either have music or not. Dearborn is a ghetto district or it is not. The residents and the board need to decide whether they live in a ghetto where the arts are not supported and encouraged or commit fully to the idea that Dearborn and the DPS are better than that. I believe the students and the community deserve better than what the current administration has offered in all aspects, but especially the arts. Writing checks with your mouth that your a** can't cash and offering hollow praise is useless. Committing fully to the entire scope of education is what all students deserve.

--by Chief on 6/4/08   Lives: Detroit area  

********How is music more important that having proper staffing for Math, Science or Language Arts?***********

Sports ought to be cut before music. You want math? You get a lot better tangible return on your investment in math education by learning to read and understand music theory than you do by counting how many yards to the next first down. It's just common sense. Now....if you want to raise money for the district or get a very few standouts a scholarship, football probably has band beat.

--by Funkadelik on 6/5/08   Lives: Dearborn  

My concern is that I am hearing rumors that the Dearborn Board of Education is in discussions to take away the Competitive sports program where the different middle schools compete against each other. What their thinking of doing is making it an intramural sports program within the school. How is that going to help the teams at the high school level and if the parents are already paying for their son/daughter to play why the change? I don't agree with this if does actually happen. Anyone else here anything about this?

--by sue on 6/5/08   Lives: Dearborn  

No need to take away sports or music. Let the parents simply pay for it!

Lots of parents have been paying for sports for years, little league, Hockey, Dearborn Lions, etc. Those kids are thrilled to play and no one at the local school is bitching about having to pay for them.

If you parents are so all fired up about your kids keeping music and sports, simply put the $$$ on the table and the argument is over! This way everyone wins, our kids get to have class sizes less than 35, we get more teachers for electives that actually train kids to earn a living and your kids get to play play play.

If music and sports as so important, you wont mind taking it up off of the back of the other 90% of the parents in the district and pay for it yourselves.

--by A good idea on 6/6/08   Lives: Dearborn  

I already bought my kid an instrument and pay for private lessons in addition to what is available through school. And I have no problem paying for a school program too. As soon as every other parent has to pay for their kid to learn anything other than math, english and science. And that includes vocational programs. Learning how to play an instrument well enough to make a living at it is as much "vocational training" as learning how to turn a wrench is.

--by Funkadelik on 6/7/08   Lives: Dearborn  

I agree with A Good Idea. I think they should pay if they want their child to play an instrument. We are already paying for our kids to play sports, why not pay for instrumental music too. I completely disagree that gym should be cut. What school has 4 to 5 gym teachers for middle school anyway????? The only middle schools that might come close to 3 to 4 gym teachers are the k through 8 schools. And alot of these gym teachers coach in middle and high school sports too. Is it legal for Dearborn Schools to start charging material fees? If every parent in Dearborn had to pay a material fee then we can keep Music, Gym, Art, Welding, Electronics, and all the extras. I do not think its too much to ask. If every parent was required to pay a material fee then we can probably keep alot of the programs in place. I'm just not sure if it is legal for a public school district to charge a material fee. Someone should look into it. That way all the parents contribute something to try to keep all the extras for our kids and our district remains competitive with other districts. My kids have not showed interest in Instrumental music but I would not mind paying a material fee to keep programs like this around. If my kids ever showed an interest in a program and it were canceled I would be very disappointed too. I know that my son enjoys gym class very much and I would hate too see that go. As parents we need to work together and with the board to come to a compromise. It doesn't matter what end of Dearborn your from....we all share a common desire to have the best school district around.

--by Have them Pay on 6/7/08   Lives: Dearborn  

Have them Pay:

The only problem with your idea is that, just like lunch, that same old bunch of people who cry poverty while driving Hummers and BMW's to the welfare office and get a free lunch card will be crying poverty about materials fees too.

The result will be hard working American parents all having to pay while others get if for free! For something like this to work, the system needs to have honest people with integrity in place. Right now, we simply do not have this!

This system has been corrupted from every single angle. Most people with any character have already left. All that remain are the ones who have sold their souls to AAPAC.

--by Pay for lunch first, than we will see on 6/8/08   Lives: Dearborn  

Schools are not just a great place to park kids for the daytime hours. They are supposed to be an investment in the community in which they serve. Students are expected to either continue with their education so they can be productive citizens, or receive training to become a productive citizen immediately upon graduation. Sure, they used to be places where we instilled values and morals, but liberal judges and morally bankrupt organizations like the ACLU have put a stop to that. Now, we have made our schools tool of capitalism and we have no more room or funding for humanities.

The mandate of our public schools must be to this end, no more, no less! We no longer can afford the luxury of using tax payer dollars to fund programs that do not have the potential of benefiting the entire tax base, whose dollars fund our schools. We have thousands of our students, who have received training in our public schools who are pursuing rewarding careers in the service industry (the only sector of our economy that is moving right now), and in well paid manufacturing jobs. The vast majority of our students who make a good living at Ford Motor Company (a huge tax base contributor in Dearborn) as well as the thousands of restaurants, hospitals, and every single other service business employee, many of whom got their training in one of our public schools.

Music feeds the soul, it opens up the mind, and it is the vehicle that some students use to achieve better grades and more academic success. These facts most can agree upon. Who has to foot the bill for it seems to be the issue we face. The problem here is that so very few students are able to turn music into revenue, it simply does not justify the expenditure and resources. Does music enrich our living conditions? Sure, it makes us feel better, but right now, we need to feed our families and pay our bills. We can’t pay for luxuries that don’t yield revenue. We live in a time where we can no longer afford the luxury of catering to a few students who enjoy music, even if it helps them do better in school. We have parents out here paying for music lessons and this is the way it should be. Just like we have parents paying to have their kids receive the benefit of playing sports, or doing art, we need to start cutting the non-imperative programs until our economy can sustain them again. We need to start passing the cost to those who participate.

--by One more thing on 6/8/08   Lives: Michigan  

Gym and Sports:

Simply put, we can get around paying for gym and sports both. Let’s simply require a student to play a sport as a graduation requirement.

Right now, if a student participates in a sport at the high school level, they can opt out of phys ed in school. If we change this to a requirement as opposed to an option, we can achieve the goal of making our kids get some physical activity AND avoid paying for sports and having to fund phys ed programs. We can also make money by renting our very expensive to maintain facilities out to organizations like we currently do, only on a larger scale. The kids get what they want, they get to choose the sport they want to play, the schools don’t have to pay for it any longer and save money, and bam! We have our answer.

What do we do with those kids who are physically exempt from physical sports? Simple, they can play chess, academic games, NHS, Provide non physical activities that enrich them intellectually. Hell, give them credit for joining an orchestra or band and open it up for music students. We can cover that problem too! Sure playing an instrument is not much of a physical activity, but it gets their mind on something other than stuffing their faces with energy drinks and video games.

The whole idea of Gym was not to force kids who otherwise do not get any physical activity to exercise. The purpose of gym was to teach kids how to stay physically fit. It was supposed to teach kids about their body and why it’s important to exercise and how to do so safely. No gym teachers are doing that any longer. They just do some basic stuff, play some sports, and basically just go through the motions. They are only in a phys ed class for less than an hour a day. This isn’t accomplishing anything but costing a lot of money!

If we make playing one sport a year a graduation requirement, we bolster our sporting programs in school and in the community as well. It will keep them affordable and get the cost up off of the district. There are a lot of sporting clubs that are very cheap out there and teach things like good sportsmanship and fair play and physical fitness. Dearborn Heights Dads Club, the YMCA and YWCA (they have everything from billiards to fencing to yoga), Dearborn Lions, Dearborn Hockey, all worthwhile and affordable sporting clubs. In addition, there are hunting clubs, basketball clubs, golf and tennis clubs as well as cheerleading and youth ROTC programs and the list goes on and on. We could start renting our facilities to these clubs and start making them pay for themselves. We already do this with local organizations like adult ed, why not make it the rule! I think 90% of the kids in our district would prefer to pick their own sport to participate in. If they actually want to do something, it will benefit them as opposed to forcing them to take gym and than having the taxpayers pay for it.

My guess is that if we protract the cost of paying our PE teachers, maintaining our facilities, equipment upkeep and replacement, benefits and pensions, we could actually give students a voucher to pay for a sport and actually save money while pumping some money into our school sports and community organizations.

This is not a perfect idea but it’s a start. We need to stop crying about the problem and start coming up with viable solutions. Its time we start thinking out of the box to get out of this financial wreck our state government and school board has put us in. If we continue to find ways to let students do what they truly want while still requiring a physical element by requiring a sport for graduation, we can help ourselves while helping our community and our kids as well.

--by Put your thinking cap on! on 6/8/08   Lives: Dearborn  

PAY FOR LUNCH FIRST, THEN WE WILL SEE. You have a point. People do not even want to pay for lunch for their kids. That makes me very sad. I just thought that a material fee or activity fee of only about $100 a year could bring in alot of money. Take for example Fordson. Fordson had close to 2500 students last year. Multiply that by $100 and wow we got ourselves $250,000 from just that school. I'm not sure what Dearborn is paying their teachers but I think that could easily pay 5 teacher salaries. But you are absolutely right about the resistance. I can see it now. Especially from people with more than one child in the district and so forth. My husband and I both work and my child brown bagged his lunch all year. I would pay an activity fee in a heart beat, but I know others will not. How sad that people want want want and nobody wants to give give give. It would be the same people footing the bill as usual. That's too bad.

--by HAVE THEM PAY on 6/8/08   Lives: Dearborn  

I wonder how many of our students have been gamefully employed as musicians.

I suspect a significant number of welders, machine operators, mechanics, electricians, carpenters, medical assistants, hospitality workers, journeyman and tradesman have been gamefully employed after receiving training in pubic school vocational programs.

I think using the argument of cost benefit analysis only diminishes the argument for continuing to pour millions into music programs that only serve a very few vs. feeding the economy with skilled trades and service people who are not college bound.

Maybe you should move on to the next reason why we should keep footing a 1.4 million dollar bill (as estimated in a board meeting a few months ago) so just a small population can learn how to play and sing. Short of becoming a street performer or lounge musician, I don’t see many musicians bolstering our economy in this very difficult economic downturn.

No one is saying that instrumental music is not a great benefit, but when we apply a more common sense approach to the tangibility of our elective programs, Instrumental music does not benefit our economy at all when compared to skilled trades or medical training or even hospitality programs.

--by Common sense, not emotional conjecture on 6/8/08   Lives: Detroit area  

These comments all sound like they come from the society of "entitlements". Americans have become so used to thinking they deserve to be given an education. Remember when, if you couldn't speak English, you actually had to go to the trouble of learning it on your own before you could attend an American school? How much does it cost us taxpayers to now pay for you to learn English? Why do taxpayers have to pay to feed the children you chose to have? Pay to play sounds like a good option in order to continue the music program, but an equal
amount should also be paid by athletes for their individual sports. How can we afford a new football stadium but not a music program? I would like to compare the grades of a music student with those of an athlete, too. Music adds to learning; kicking a ball does not. It all depends on whose ox is being gored, doesn't it?

--by Susan on 7/2/08   Lives: Dearborn  

Put your Thinking Cap On suggested we should have all kids play a sport and eliminate phys ed. Let's say I choose basketball. The high school only has one boys basketball team and one girls basketball team. The school has 2,500 students. It's not possible to have all students play a sport.

Also, the schools require kids to take phys ed because our state government mandated it. Just like our state government continually changes the curriculum DPS must offer, and we end up spending money we don't have for textbooks to comply with the changes.

--by Geer Park on 7/2/08   Lives: Dearborn  

Well, thank you everybody who has commented on my little letter. Some good suggestions some not so good. All suggestions should be sent to the Board of Education. They will be discussing all options all summer. Besides the Instrumental Departments it is also being discussed that Sports be cut. Remember, East is loosing alot more than West. Maybe some of you parents don't care about the East but those children deserve the same and just because they live on that side of town doesn't mean they don't deserve the same education and electives. If East really wants to get rid of those classes than Dearborn should open up School of Choice again. I live in the East and my daughter doesn't even like Fordson anymore. We need to invest in our Schools anyway we can (even though our schools taxes are high) and make these kids schools days, days to remember. Remember yours.

--by Michelle on 7/2/08   Lives: Dearborn  

Look you guys just don't get it! If all we are doing is TRAINING our kids for a particular job then fine....get rid all subjects they won't need for a particular job.. My point is that COMMON SENSE does not use "common sense". How do you know that being involved in music is not a benefit? Have you ever been involved in music program? HAve you ever spent hours on an instrument practicing to get it right? Do you have the disipline to practice everyday for a least on hour? To you have the people skills it takes to work as a group to produce something that is greater than a individual? Apparently not!
or you would'nt be making such an inane statement. Since when is school just for students to learn a trade? I thought we were better than that. Our American school system was to also FULLY EDUCATE and not just prepare students for work. Look both are important. But please don't turn education into job preparation ...that is so small minded... and by the way... take some music classes if you dare and see what it really takes to be a musician and a better person!

--by what does education really mean? on 7/2/08   Lives: Detroit area  

I am curious as to why, despite recalling several music instructors and reinstatement of most of the programs, the instrumental music people think they are above budget cuts?

Even after giving in to many of the cut backs, the parents at the last board meeting were still whining about cuts that were rescinded. Artis went so far as to stop a parent and tell her that the program that she was complaining about was still in place. This did not stop the parent from whining about it anyway.

It is apparent that these people are not satisfied with anything. Unlike so many other departments that suffered far deeper cuts than instrumental music, they feel above everyone else.

--by Enough already! on 7/2/08   Lives: Dearborn  

I agree; it is much more important to put the emphasis on our changing and emerging technologies. In an attempt at trying to stay one step ahead of our Asian and Indian counter-parts.

--by DPS ELECTIVE TEACHER on 7/2/08   Lives: USA  

What does education really mean:

Statistically, how many people pursue a career in music? What percentage of our economy is directly attributable to instrumental music? The entertainment industry as a whole only sees a fraction of its income from music, so why don’t you tell us all how instrumental music provides any measurable support to the economy as a whole?

Business and vocational programs contribute immensely to our economy in a very measurable and recognizable way. The same simply cannot be said for instrumental music. It’s not a necessity, it’s a luxury and one we simply can’t afford!

No one is saying that music does not enhance our lives and enrich those who practice it, all we are saying is that if you want your kids to participate in it, than you pay for it! I think sports participants should do the same. Football, baseball, hockey, soccer, tennis, golf, none of these are necessities nor do they contribute to a large segment of the economy. Based on this, they should be supported by the participants, not the community! If it can’t contribute to the economy by keeping college or non-college bound kids in a job that will allow them to support themselves and not be a burden to society, it has to fall onto those few parents who want to provide it to their kids. The rest of us are simply not interested in the investment in your kids good time, we would rather invest the money in training that will feed the need our economy demands.

As a home owner who depends on the solvency of our district, my position is that instrumental music, sports and any other programs that do not prepare students directly for college or employment should be funded completely by the parents who want their kids to participate.

--by Right now, education means relevance on 8/4/08   Lives: Dearborn  

hey music is very important to some people. we just want some support k. some kids want to get a scholar ship to a collage for music. if the school takes away this program than kids want be able to get a scholar ship. stop criticizing start helping

--by saxohonegirl on 3/22/09   Lives: Dearborn  

It's funny to read all these "suggestions" from people who have clearly never stepped foot in a music classroom. As a former DPS music student and athlete, I can say that a lot of department fund-raising occurs to keep these programs afloat. In the high school level, you need large class size with daily classes to be successful. What kills the district is having to pay $40-80K a year to a teacher that isn't teaching gym (like the 5+ each high school has) or science.

--by A Former DPS Music Student on 4/1/09   Lives: Dearborn