In the midst of the government capital budgeting process, education sometimes takes a backseat to maintaining infrastructure, Medicare, social security and defense spending. Governments have the task of determining how to best spend their resources to better their country. And often, they think of the effects on the present, not into the future. And with lack of public funding, schools are forced to slash their budgets, meaning that teachers are laid off, programs are expedited and students have less opportunity to excel in an educational environment.

 

Currently, a lack of public funding, what is being called a “funding crisis” in England has ravaged their schools’ fine arts and language programs. According to an article posted on the Classic FM website, discussed a survey that found that nearly 70 percent of state high schools and colleges were forced to make budget cuts to their fine arts programs and lessen instruction time. A-level music, French, German and drama are of particular concern, as each of these subjects had over a quarter of their respective budgets cut.

 

As a result, educators, citizens, and students alike have called for the government to increase their spending toward fine arts programs. Seemingly the government is attempting to honor this request. According to an England Department of Education representative, the government plans on “investing £500 million in music and arts education programs between 2016 and 2020 to give young people the opportunity to take part in a range of activities.” Government funding is not the lone solution to this problem, as England is also experiencing a rift in social class division, but it could be a step in the right direction.

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In the United States, though, budget cuts in the fine arts are nothing new. For decades now, fine arts have become less and less prominent in many schools across the country. Constrained by limited resources and support of the arts, public schools have had their hands forced in cutting the arts in favor of what are deemed more “practical” subject areas like math, English, and business. In conjunctions with these cuts, the US National Endowment for the Arts has lost over $30 million in annual federal funding over the last two and a half decades, according to an article from the Huffington Post.

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This issue has become increasingly pertinent recently, especially with the way the Trump administration has approached the federal capital budgeting process. Not only has the NEA been affected as a result of the most recent budget alterations, but other cultural agencies (namely the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting) have all had to endure a combined billion dollar funding loss.

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Unsurprisingly, these cuts have been met with serious opposition. In an article published by the Washington Post, Robert Lynch, president and CEO of the Americans for the Arts stated “It’s sad, illogical and it will be damaging. All the data, everything, points to the fact that investment in the arts industry has been a big win, economically and job-wise.”

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Lynch makes a valid point in that latter statement. Numerous studies have shown that music education and the fine arts help students perform well in other subjects, and thus be more successful later on in life. The New York Times reported that a 2006 study by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum suggested a correlation between music education and literacy skills.

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Other studies have suggested that there are positive cognitive and emotional benefits. Findings from a study in the Netherlands found that "children who received music lessons showed improved: language-based reasoning; the ability to plan, organize and complete tasks; as well as improved academic achievement," Artur Jaschke of VU University of Amsterdam stated in announcing the findings.

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Naturally though, resource scarcity and politics have prevented the government and other independent agencies from significantly acting on these findings, leaving schools to fend for themselves and thereby cut their arts programs. This does make the actions of advocacy groups, as well as individuals, all the more imperative to the future of music education, both in the United States and across the world.