Full-time art, music teachers: a dwindling breed?

Most schools cannot afford both a music and an art teacher; 66 schools have neither.

by Dale Mezzacappa

Photo: Harvey Finkle

Tenth grader John Vizzachero performs with the saxophone quartet from the High School for Creative and Performing Arts at the May opening of the District's annual student art show.

Once, the Philadelphia School District was a flagship for instruction in the arts, with certified music and art teachers in virtually every school. Today, it is struggling to rebuild that reputation as it faces tighter revenues, a shortage of qualified teachers, and pressure to spend more time on reading and math.

Today, less than a third of the city's public schools have both art and music teachers. The majority of the rest have one or the other, but 66 schools have neither, according to a Notebook analysis of teacher staffing patterns.

Increasingly, students are getting art and music instruction through extracurricular programs and short-term visits from outside artists, not as part of their everyday learning.

Still, CEO Paul Vallas maintains that the District is not “shortchanging” the arts. Among other things, he said, it is one of the few in the country to write a core curriculum for the arts, has expanded partnerships with local arts organizations, plans to open at least two new creative and performing arts high schools, started programs in Asian and Puerto Rican music, and recently invested $1.7 million to buy instruments to restore high school bands and orchestras.

“We've made progress in all areas except for full-time art and music teachers,” Vallas said. “Nobody can tell me there's been slippage here on my watch.”

As of May, 133 District schools – 50 percent – have no full-time music teacher, and 121 have no full-time art teacher (see list). These are higher numbers than four years ago, when Philadelphia Citizens for Children and Youth produced a report on declining numbers of art and music teachers just before Vallas took the reins of the District. That report said 82 schools did not have full-time art teachers, and 83 lacked full-time music teachers.

Since 2002-03, as District enrollment has declined, the number of art teachers in the District has declined by 16 percent, compared to a reduction in the overall teacher workforce of 5 percent. For music teachers, the decline has been about 7 percent.

Racially isolated schools, those at which more than 90 percent of the students are non-white, are somewhat more likely than other schools to lack music and art teachers. Seventy percent of the 66 schools with neither art nor music are racially isolated, compared to 62 percent of all District schools.

The median poverty rate of the schools with no art or music teacher is 79 percent, which is the same as the District's rate. However, few magnet schools or schools in the Northeast, which have the highest percentages of middle-class students, lack both art and music teachers.

The decision whether to hire or retain art and music teachers rests with principals, who must juggle testing demands and wish-lists with available funds. Most schools have seen their budgets and teacher allotments shrink over the past several years, even as they are being held more accountable for student progress.

Vallas said that much of the increase in schools without music or art is due to decisions by education management organizations (EMOs) to drop those subjects, not to choices by District-run schools. Over 40 schools were turned over by the SRC to EMOs in 2002 as part of a privatization reform strategy.