Charter School structured on music curriculum

[Billster]

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Plenty of elementary schools teach music, but how many require students to attend a 45-minute music class every day, and to take half-hour violin lessons twice a week, and to practice every night? How many issue a violin to each student in first grade, which he or she gets to keep until graduating fifth grade? How many organize the entire educational experience around music? "At most schools, you don't get to learn how to play an instrument," Bernard says a few minutes after he completes his own solo. "You just do one thing. But music and math kind of go together." Adds Isaiah: "Music helps me do other things." Researchers -- and parents -- tend to agree. Maybe that's why there's a waiting list of more than 600 for a spot in the Conservatory Lab Charter School, a racially and ethnically mixed elementary school in Brighton for mostly low-income Boston youngsters. Tomorrow afternoon , all 132 students will take the stage at Jordan Hall for a year-end concert during which they will showcase the kind of learning that can't be measured by a standardized test. At a time when some schools are cutting back on performing-arts education, this school has decided that music is the best way to animate the study of seemingly unrelated subjects. Jonathan Rappaport, the school's executive director , is a longtime music educator and musician who describes the organizing principle of the school's curriculum as "learning through music." The goal is not to produce musicians, he says, but rather "to use music as a way of educating kids in a very comprehensive way."

 

"Bernard" & "Isaiah" are two students interviewed in the article.

 

I say

[brewgoodbeer]

Charter schools are great as long as the instruction inside the school is up to par. They are somewhat like magnet high schools. Sometimes in charter schools, and it doesn't matter what the charter is, while intensions are good, finding the instructors or substituting parents for instructors delutes the purpose for the school. You could do this in a neighborhood near you. Anyone can start a charter school. You just have the right the charter, get it apporved, petition the local school board, and then follow the charter. It all sounds so simple, but while doable, it is far more difficult than one thinks. I wish these people much sucess.