ALBANY – As a kick off to Music in our Schools Month, Music Educators from all over New York State came together in Albany on Monday, March 2, to spend the day meeting with legislators to advocate for the continued support of music in our schools.
Music educators from NYSSMA Zone 8 – which covers Chenango, Delaware, Otsego, Schoharie, and Madison Counties – held meetings with several NYS legislators, on Monday. The legislators included Assemblyman Clifford Crouch, Assemblywoman Claudia Tenney, Assemblyman Pete Lopez, Assemblyman Bill Magee, Senator James Seward, Senator Tom Libous, and Senator John Bonacic.
Among this group of Music Educator were Gregg Maistros, Gregg Norris, Amy Hoxie, and Julie M. Solomon from Chenango County; Ann Monaco and Andrea Reece from Otsego County; Diane Krick and Jonelle Rabeler from Delaware County; Cassandra Olin from Schoharie County; and Nick Anderalli, Holly McCoy, and Bill McCoy from Madison County.
This group represented and advocated for the two million plus music students and over 10,000 music educators of New York State. The music advocates spoke to the legislators about their concerns with Governor Cuomo’s latest education reform proposal, the lack of State Aid information for our schools, the Gap Elimination Adjustment, the effects of the Tax Cap, and asked for their continued support for Music In Our Schools.
“Every child deserves a comprehensive and sequential education including music and the arts,” said Julie Solomon, the NYSSMA Zone 8 Representative. “But, high stakes testing, additional mandates, and tax caps have put added stress on our schools. While some of these initiatives were intended to improve education they have had detrimental effects on music and other programs in many schools around New York State. We have to carefully guard every student’s right to a well-rounded education that includes music and arts.”
Amy Hoxie, a Music Educator in the Sidney Central School District, explained that the group went to Albany with five primary points of discussion in mind. She said that they wanted to address the Gap Elimination Adjustment, the Governor's proposal regarding NYS teacher evaluations, the withholding of state aid estimates from schools, the NYS Summer School of the Arts (NYSSSA), and the upcoming Board of Regents election.
The Gap Elimination Adjustment (GEA) was started in 2009 to help New York State through a financial crisis. Essentially, the state took money,that otherwise would have gone to schools to take care of other fiscally needy areas of the state budget. Since the state's financial crisis has passed, schools are coming out in numbers asking for the GEA money to be once again directed toward schools. The primary concern of the group that went to Albany last week was to address how the GEA has negatively affected music education in NY schools. Advocates would like to see this money channeled back into the schools so that art and music programs may reap the benefits.
The second point that the group addressed in Albany was the Governor's proposal that 50% of a teachers evaluation would be tied to student performance on the state English and Math exams – regardless of the subject being evaluated. This practice would place a large portion of music teachers' evaluations on something completely out of their control. “It would be like assessing New York's Governor on job growth in Wisconsin,” said Hoxie.
Another point of discussion was the Governor's withholding of state aid estimates from the schools. Hoxie explained that the Governor will not release these numbers until the Senators agree to his reform policy. This will force schools to have to estimate their own budgets without knowing what kind of state aid they will be receiving. “This doesn't help students in any way, in any subject at all,” said Hoxie.
The group from Zone 8 is also concerned with funding for NYSSSA – The New York State Summer School of the Arts. This program, according to Hoxie, is an incredible training program for students in the arts. The concern of the group is that there is no aid set aside for low income students to attend NYSSSA. “There is money set aside for the program in general,” said Hoxie, “But not for low income students.” The group wants to make sure that anyone that wants to attend the program can do so.
The NYSSMA group also addressed the upcoming Board of Regents election. According to Hoxie, there are six positions coming up for election. The primary concern is that of the 17 currently on the board, only one has public school experience. This highlights a concern that big business is pushing education decisions in the state. “We would like to have people with public school experience making decisions for education,” said Hoxie.
“The bottom line is that a quality music education should be available to all students in the state,” said Hoxie. “Part of that quality is not just funding but staffing, scheduling, and cooperation with the state so that we can continue existing programs.”
Regarding the overarching theme of last Monday's trip to Albany, Hoxie said, “We just want to make sure that there is equitable emphasis on the arts in New York's schools.”