Klarinet Archive - Posting 000686.txt from 1998/04

From: Karen Miner <teach94@-----.com>
Subj: Illinois Music Teachers
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 09:45:08 -0400

Since the topic has been budget cuts and quality of music education around
the country I thought I would let everyone know what has been going on here
in Illinois recently. I found this out back in January from another list.

Illinois General Assembly has passed a bill that is going to eliminate
music education as a major or career choice. It says that in order to be
able to teach music, one must get a degree in either elementary or
secondary education with a teaching specialization in any subject other
than the arts, PLUS an endorsement on his or her teaching certificate. This
will cause the quality of the arts to plummet. If college students are only
required to get "x" number of credits in music for the endoresement,
they'll be missing out on quite a bit of important training that they
simply don't have time for with majoring in something else. This will
eventually cause the extinction of music teachers. If it is going to be so
difficult to be able to teach music, there will be few who are going to
stick it out and fulfill what they've always wanted to do. This bill is
P.A. 90-548 and will eliminate the Special (K-12) Certificate effective
Jan. 1, 1999.

I emailed Gov. Edgar expressing my concerns and was told that he has been
quite proud of his refoms on the educational funding system and that it
will be more fair to taxpayers and more equtable to students.

I don't understand how this bill can make a students education better...it
is only going to make it worse.

Any thoughts on this?

Karen Miner

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"The gift of imagination is by no means an exclusive property of the
artist; it is a gift we all share; to some degree or other all of us, all
of you, are endowed with powers of fantasy." .... Leonard Bernstein

Karen Miner :-)
email address: teach94@-----.com
webpage: www.edwpub.com/members/kminer

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~