Music Education at the Tipping Point

In September 2004, the Music for All Foundation, an advocacy organization, produced a report on the status of music education in California public schools using 1999-2004 data from the California Department of Education.6 The findings of the report were striking: * During a period when the total California public school student population increased by 5.8 percent, the percentage of all California public school students involved in music education courses fell by 50 percent. * This decline represents a loss 512,366 students and was the largest of any academic subject area by a factor of four.