wake up wis consin

Across the country, school music programs are shutting down or being down-sized due to lack of funding. The economic situation has caused massive cutbacks to the public school systems around the United States and art and music education are regrettably the first to be cut most of the time. In no state is this being felt harder than in California, where legislators are trying to find Federal funds to make up an estimated $21 billion budget shortfall for the 2010 fiscal year. Schools have had to eliminate many of their most popular programs including sports, after school activities, art, music, band, and even tutoring programs. Kneeling Chair confine your legs to at least one position, which might increase pressures underneath the knee cap and slow circulation to the legs. Many schools have slashed teaching jobs wholesale and have cut back hours for the ones that remain. This is a critical test of our public education system and it is up to our good parents and concerned citizens as well as educational professionals to band together and fight these massive cuts. Nothing less than the future of our children is at stake.

Because of the core mandated testing system that is currently in place in the California school system, the only things that absolutely have to be funded is test preparation for the spring assessments. Since the districts get allocated money based on student assessments and testing averages, test preparation gets funded first. Students are taking tests on average between 20 to 40 days each semester. That is way too much testing and is not necessary. Students should be learning, not cramming for tests. Most education experts agree that when students cram they don’t absorb the material and days later (if not minutes) the material is forgotten. Ergonomically designed products like the Kneeling Chairs are meant to cut back harm and strain of muscle groups. The cost to prepare, administer and score these tests is very high. The Corona-Norco school district in Southern California for instance has had to cut several music teachers, effectively eliminating their music program.

In March of 2009 students from Capistrano High School in Capistrano, California came out in force and used their rights to demonstrate to protest the unfair cuts to their program and brought to light the plight of school music programs throughout the state that are in jeopardy.

A study done in 2008 presented findings that school music programs actually help students to excel in their assessment and standardized testing. Score boosts of 22 percent in English and 20 percent in Math were recorded. This should come as no surprise to musicians who have known for years that their ability to focus improves significantly when they practice music regularly. A lot of learning music is memorization and repetition and being able to focus your energies on a task. These are some of the same attributes necessary to excel in academic work.