Been wondering about this. I think all of our states believe in high-stakes testing--the All-State audition.
In my state (CT) about 50% of the students selected for all-state come from the top 5% wealthy districts. The bottom classification (about 50% of the population) gets about 2% of the selections. Selection to all state, like standardized tests is almost all directly related to district/family income. Yes, of course there are exceptions.
All Eastern uses a formula for selection. Pennsylvania gets 15% of the students, Deleware 4%, etc... So this is a system that people believe in.
Do any states do something similar with their All-State, where the number of selections is directly related to your population? In Connecticut this would mean Bridgeport, Hartford, New Haven would get about 1/2 the slots.
I just think we are excluding so many kids. I hope I explained this well enough. Would love to hear your thoughts.
The longer I'm in this profession, the more I am convinced that competition primarily serves to edify the ego of those involved. Once one hits that pinnacle of being in one of those top 5% ensembles and moves on to the next elite ensemble above that, you eventually hit a point where you are no longer able to go more elite. And then what?
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, along the way, there's a ton of people who are the "not-elite".
Of all the students sitting on stage at the PMEA Region Orchestra festival I just attended, about 1/3rd of them will probably become music majors in either performance or education. If they're performance, they're going for even more elitism simply because they love to play and it defines them as a person. For those going into education, they wish to train the next batch of people who will be sitting on an honors ensemble stage like them. The other 2/3rds will most likely pack up their instrument after high school or college and never touch it again.
How do we teach kids to love music enough to perform it and create it their entire lives? We've got to do more than just crank out excellent performances.