Swimming Against the Tide

A great story about the music program in Lynn, MA and how the school district is bucking the "narrowing of the curriculum trend!
What Lynn is getting is one of the most integrated performing and visual arts curriculums in the state. What Lynn is doing is swimming against the tide.
According to a nationwide survey released last month by the nonpartisan Center on Education Policy, the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 has pushed state and local policymakers to divert funding to reading and math, the two subjects with the strictest testing and accountability provisions.
The practice, called ''narrowing curriculum," is widespread. The Center on Education Policy survey reported that 71 percent of the nation's 15,000 school districts have trimmed hours of instruction in history, music, and other subjects since the law's passage.
But not in Lynn. The city's school district remains firmly entrenched within that 29 percent that hasn't budged. Rather than downsize, the district has built upon the arts.
The required and student-elective performing and visual arts curriculum accessible to the 15,000 students in Lynn's public school system isn't merely ambitious; it's also comprehensive.
Let's hope this becomes the rule and not the exception in the future!
Something to sing about – The Boston Globe