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Music Teacher Education in This Century: Part II

Posted on: Thursday, 5 April 2007, 03:00 CDT

By Colwell, Richard

In Part I of "Music Teacher Education in This Century," I discussed some of the aspects of teacher education that have shaped the way music is taught, including concerns of reformers who are attempting to alter both the purpose and the content of the educational material to teach critical thinking, and to hold teachers, or at least schools, accountable for conveying to students matters of moral and social importance and of personal decision making in all subjects. I demonstrated how music education created on the basis of our moral and social beliefs supports the general purpose of schooling. Recent data from research in education indicate how ineffective colleges of education have been in preparing teachers to communicate the individual and cooperative knowledge and skills needed for K-12 graduates to function in the twenty-first century. Balancing beliefs with research data is a fine line requiring those in teacher education in the arts to identify assumptions, traditions, and effective practices.

Noddings (1992) suggests that in an ideal world we should eliminate the present curriculum that has effectively been obsolete for at least two centuries; we need not go that far. I suggest that we can accomplish the goals of education reformers and maintain an even greater commitment to excellence in music performance.

The Relationship of Music Teacher Education to These Beliefs and Practices

What Should We Do?

Suggestions for improving teacher education are vague. Altering teacher certification requirements is not a promising strategy. In defending certification, Darling-Hammond et al. (2005) found that certified teachers produced stronger student gains than the noncertified teachers trained by Teach for America. This is a weak reed on which to argue because these are contradictory research findings and many Teach for America teachers are certified through alternative certification programs. There are also recent reports from Teacher Quality Bulletin (2006) that state by their third year of teaching, fellows in the New Teacher Project produce gains in middle school language arts and math that leave traditionally trained teachers far behind. Beyond the initial certification requirement, Finn (2006) and Eisner (2005) argued that no hard evidence exists to confirm that passing the extensive assessment of the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards is related to successful teaching. This absence of evidence is not surprising because teachers are not asked to adopt better procedures but only to document and reflect on their present practices. With some diligence, most teachers can pass the assessment. Passing depends on the assessors' "observing" and rating of submitted videotapes of teaching. Observation of teaching, however, is a crude measure of teacher effectiveness judged by student outcomes. Convincing teacher education research on the validity of observations is scarce.

Student Characteristics, Entrance, and Program Requirements

At present, there appear to be only two prerequisites for entry into a music teacher education program at most institutions: a minimum academic grade point average and sufficient musical competence to be admitted to the school of music. These seem overly minimal, and serious suggestions have been made regarding additional essential requirements. Do the moral character traits (these are numerous but include: caring, fairness, honesty, responsibility and social justice) suggested for teacher educators also apply to music teachers? If the answer is yes, can these traits be taught in present music teacher education programs? It is likely that these traits would have to exist already or would require long-term education. The California State College system, positing a need for all graduates to be critical thinkers, added a one-semester critical- thinking course to the curriculum. According to Bok (2006), there is a near consensus that critical thinking is the most important objective of undergraduate college programs. Individuals in the California system found that the course by itself was ineffective, but that students made progress when an emphasis on critical thinking was incorporated in all instruction during the four undergraduate years. One does not learn to write or think well in a single course. The present music teacher education program needs to address issues of entrance competencies, that is, to consider what characteristics are essential for entrance and which can be taught in the curriculum. A possible preadmittance evaluation may consider the student's characteristics of personality, stability, patience, caring, attitude, and other beliefs including past good work. Articles in the American School Board Journal recommend assessment of work over time to reduce the number of poor hires on the basis of short interviews and transcripts (Clement 2006). Similar assessments would make sense for entrance and exit procedures in teacher education. Weightings of these characteristics (unless one is found to be absolutely essential) would allow a range of acceptable responses in each category, totaling an overall characteristics score that includes talent and featuring accomplishment as the determining admittance factor. Where does musicianship rank in admittance decisions? How relevant is it to education? Course grades reveal teacher characteristics like attendance and initiative more than musicianship or scholarly competence.

Do advisers, who could be important when faced with potentially less capable students, counsel those students out of teacher education? No data on such practices exist. Advisers are expected to exercise caution in any counseling. Enrollment is important to the administration, and legal challenges lurk in the absence of data. Do course grades in the four-year curriculum winnow out those students not suitable to teach music? Student teaching is not a competency test, although traditionally considered the final hurdle. In the present, the number of students failing student teaching or an internship is almost zero-in fact, nearly all student teachers receive high grades.

A thoughtful conclusion, made on the basis of education research, is that student teaching is an expensive but nonessential component of the music-education curriculum. Extensive apprenticeship experiences shape music teaching more as a craft than as an academic discipline. Much can be said for craftsmanship, but it cannot transform students into informed and thoughtful individuals. Modeling, an element of craftsmanship, is awkward because it does not equip the prospective teacher to recognize and use contextual factors; furthermore, there are multiple successful models.

While looking for ways to reshape the curriculum, analyzing present music teacher education programs does not appear to be helpful because the number of hours required for a major varies widely among accredited institutions, and one can find little, if any, common content across institutions. Of equal difficulty is the identification of institutions that are exemplary in educating teachers for the public schools. Data indicate that those institutions that attract better students produce the most competent graduates, reducing confidence in present curricula and experiences. Better students in better schools do better. Can we devise structures that will make this rule less inevitable? One strategy we could consider is to raise entrance and course standards in critical areas to approach the standards possible in elite institutions. Educators have found that establishing higher standards (even for the most disadvantaged schools) and holding students to these standards results in increased achievement. The literature- advocating rigor in teacher education programs is surprisingly sparse.

Possible Limiting Teacher Certification and Curriculum Requirements

The music education undergraduate curriculum is influenced, if not controlled, by the requirements and recommendations for a teaching license in each state and by program approval (accreditation) by state and national organizations. The overlap in course requirements among those organizations is considerable and accrediting organizations and states have agreed to accept each other's approvals as valid. Although states have not been anxious to relinquish control, interstate reciprocity and alternate certification, as well as agreements with the National Council of the Association of Teacher Education (NCATE), have shifted any unique requirements to professional development or licensure renewal. For example, teachers moving to South Dakota are given a grace period to become competent in human relations and South Dakota Indian Studies. Similar idiosyncrasies exist in other states. Music teacher educators must also give consideration to any local university requirements, such as a limit placed on the number of hours required for graduation or the curriculum balance among professional education, general education, special education, and the major and minor. An academic major and student teaching are the two common requirements in the traditional teacher certification program. General education requirements (vaguely defined) vary from forty to seventy semester hours. Passing PRAXIS II or a statedeveloped competency test is not an uncommon requirement, altho\ugh the relationship between test scores and effective music teaching is unproven. The same might be said of the required coursework.

Many states stipulate graduation from a state-approved program. This means that the state is controlling the curriculum of teacher education through this caveat for teacher licensure. Leadership from the states is not expected because state officials are graduates of colleges of education that also supply the state's school administrators, a rather closed trinity. I found no evidence that any state or local requirement was based on research data or on improved teacher effectiveness. State-approved programs, however, also provide considerable flexibility, at least for the more prestigious and influential institutions; for example, several state teacher certification officers have made convincing arguments that state requirements such as equity, problem solving, professionalism, and being of good moral character are integrated into basic coursework.

Accrediting Agencies for Teacher Education

The NCATE and the National Association of Schools of Music (NASM) are the primary accrediting forces for music teacher education, although regional associations may, on occasion, have some influence. NCATE tends to work with colleges of education, whereas NASM influences schools of music. For any substantive change in music teacher education, NASM must be involved and, therefore, I used NASM materials and conversations to portray the present position of NASM with respect to music teacher education. NASM is an eighty-two-year-old organization with more than six hundred institutional members. Working together through NASM, those colleges, conservatories, and universities have a proven record of influencing the content of teacher education programs nationwide, including specific state requirements. NASM revises its standards constantly in consultation with various specialists, including music educators. Those revisions reflect continuing efforts to address questions of need, efficacy, and relevance. The following analysis addresses all three to some extent, but with a primary focus on relevance. NASM is critical because few state education departments employ music specialists in their accrediting office, and certification officials must rely on ETS PRAXIS test scores and recommendations from the institutions that prepare music teachers.

The 2005-2006 NASM Handbook sets out an overall governing principle for baccalaureate degrees in music education: "Curricular structure, content, and time requirements shall enable students to develop the range of knowledge, skills, and competencies expected of those holding a professional baccalaureate degree in music education" (83). Furthermore, the text indicates structural guidelines for curricula expected to accomplish this purpose. Those guidelines are expressed in terms of percentages of total curricular content. Although the percentages have importance and carry weight in curriculum building, it is critically important to understand that the percentages are not the standards, but rather guidelines based on the time it normally takes to achieve the competencies associated with baccalaureate degrees in music education required elsewhere in the standards.

Those guidelines indicate that 50 percent of the program normally consists of studies in music. However, "music education methods courses, such as elementary and secondary methods and supplementary instruments, which are primarily music in content, may be counted under the music component" (NASM 83). The guideline for general studies is 30 to 35 percent of the total curriculum. That amount provides sufficient time to achieve core general studies requirements in most institutions. The guidelines also recommend 15 to 20 percent of the total curriculum in professional education, which includes student teaching.

As is the case with many educationassociated standards and recommendations, NASM outlines seven desirable attributes of prospective music teachers, which are as follows:

1. Personal commitment to the art of music, to teaching music as an element of civilization, and to encourage the artistic and intellectual development of students plus the ability to fulfill these commitments as an independent professional.

2. Ability to lead students to an understanding of music as an art form, as a means of communication, and as part of their intellectual and cultural heritage.

3. Ability to inspire others and to excite the imagination of students, engendering a respect for music and a desire for musical knowledge and experiences.

4. Ability to articulate logical rationales for music as a basic component of general education.

5. Ability to work productively within specific education systems, maintain positive relationships with individuals of various social and ethnic groups, and empathize with students and colleagues of differing backgrounds.

6. Ability to evaluate ideas, methods, policies in the arts, the humanities, and in arts education for their impact on the musical and cultural development of students. (83-84)

The NASM standards statement for music education then outlines specific competencies necessary to reach those goals. Those competencies are divided into sections titled "Music Competencies" and "Teaching Competencies." There is also a section titled "Professional Procedures," primarily intended to ensure the application of music education expertise in the organization, management, and delivery of instruction and in the supervision of student teaching.

NASM regards undergraduate programs in music education as professionally oriented curricula. As such, students are expected to gain fundamental competencies shared by all professional musicians. Those include capabilities in performance, aural skills and analysis, composition and improvisation, history and repertory, and technology. Standards also call for the ability to synthesize those elements and apply them to practice in the field of specialization- in this case, music education. In addition, NASM emphasizes four musical competencies: conducting and musical leadership, arranging, functional performance on keyboard and voice (as well as on instruments when appropriate), and competence in musical analysis, history, and literature.

Standards also provide for specific musical competencies associated with the usual teaching specializations: general, vocal and choral, instrument, and-as of November 2005-a category titled "Specific Music Fields or Combinations" that provides a framework for different kinds of music education programs on the basis of a variety of areas such as composition, ethnic music, jazz, music history and literature, and so forth.

NASM recommends fieldwork, observation prior to acceptance into the teacher education program, and specific evaluative procedures- initial and postgraduation. The match between the characteristics suggested by NASM and the beliefs suggested by professional teacher educators about effective teaching is minimal, possibly suggesting the uniqueness of music teaching. NASM statements seem derived from the content of the discipline. Perhaps one reason for this is that it is impossible to hide levels of achievement in music performance. Music teachers cannot fool anyone with trendy rhetoric or therapeutic statements of social goals.

In terms of general education, NASM lists expectations for a range of studies across the arts, humanities, social sciences, and sciences. The standards provided are consistent with the goals of most liberal arts colleges.

At this time, NASM is in the process of a major standards review. I do not expect that major principles will change, but I do expect additions and refinements. The standards review presents an opportune time to consider an important condition. NASM requirements are flexible. They provide frameworks for the specific approaches and decisions of educational institutions. However, this flexibility has not been used sufficiently. If it were, music teacher preparation would show more variety and experimentation. All types of forces produce voluntary conformities. Those forces, including administrative convenience, have resulted in today's overly rigid and inflexible music teacher education curricula. NASM standards are an influence, but NASM's approach is far less bureaucratic than those of state education departments and education schools. Furthermore, the constant problem of legislated requirements that add hours to teacher education programs to address social or educational concerns persists. In addition, teacher education programs are faced with caps on the number of hours that can be required. Those caps can serve as a tremendous force of standardization. Another force of standardization is imitation. It is natural for individual teacher educators to replicate programs they respect or to incorporate a good practice that works in their institution. Technology has made it easier to conduct polls. Whenever there is a problem or an issue, individuals contact as many other people in the same field as possible, find out what action is being taken, and take the same action, often without careful consideration of its application to their own situation. Inappropriate use of the NASM standards can clearly be a force for standardization; although, there are many other forces involved. Many of those other forces are not manifested in an organizational structure at all, but rather in ways of thinking and working.

If we want to look ahead to different approaches to music education, we need to address the problem of standardization; however, this is not the only problem. It is futile to complain about standardization without a set of specific ideas for new or revised approaches. It is hard for new and revised approaches to be well crafted unless they address the issue of priorities. The NASM standards, for all their completeness, do not specify prio\rities among all of the competencies expected. There is an assumption that because the standards describe thresholds for career entry, every element is important. This approach places tremendous responsibility on institutions (and the music educators involved) to set priorities among the vast array of possibilities. There is not enough time in a four-year curriculum to address everything in-depth, even in the earlier listed competencies in music. In music education, teacher educators are required to identify competencies and attributes that merit priority in their programs. In other words, what is important beyond the threshold level? Without such institutional and music- education program priorities, there is insufficient clarity for the teacher education program to reach its peak effectiveness. Rather than being innovative, music teacher educators have faulted NASM for its rigid curriculum requirements.

The kind of music teacher preparation program I suggest in this article is not inconsistent with NASM standards or its guidelines for curricular structure in music-education programs. But to satisfy NASM requirements and to assist our own decision making about local priorities, the music teacher education field needs to conduct research like that of the American Education Research Association (AERA) study. We know how to teach music and our success has led to beliefs and a general consensus about what is fundamental. That success may be because of the importance NASM placed on subjectmatter competence and not on other portions of the curriculum. However, music educators need more data to accompany our beliefs if we are to establish the best relationship with the NASM standards as a flexible framework, local music teacher preparation programs, and effective music teaching. When a student graduates from a musiceducation program, knowledge of his or her competence consists of a list of the courses that the student passed and the institution's report that the student integrated the expected competencies or attributes, through experience, into a synthesis of knowledge and skills that enable effective teaching in the K-12 classroom. Unless an individual teacher looks carefully at course syllabi, tests, and other evaluations, these data do not provide much information. Under current, perhaps unfortunate, pressure of education reform, students' abilities to pass courses and gain degrees are inadequate assurance to the public of the validity of our programs. On their face, these data are not the basis for ascertaining whether improvement is needed. Transcripts and diplomas are symbolic summarizations indicating a vast sea of possible knowledge and skill development without specific definition. Although more research may or may not address public relations issues, it could help us with the question of improvement. However, improvement is always couched and pursued in terms of specific results. My point about the discrepancy between content and language in music, music pedagogy, and likely general education applies to our outcome beliefs. NASM suggestions are for basic competencies, which indicate that there must be curricular allowance for attaining additional competence when such competence is in the interest of the student. Enlightened advisers and students need to take advantage of university-wide offerings for the education of a well-rounded music educator.

Kimpton (2005) argues that NASM requirements are insufficient in some respects and reports on a revised teacher preparation program at the University of Minnesota. Given the fact that the University of Minnesota is an institutional member of NASM, it appears that the program meets NASM standards. A closer look at the various elements of the program reveal an approach that is based more on what is in the public schools rather than what should or might be. He reports that part of the revision is a greater selectivity when accepting students into the program, but he provides no information on the validity of the selection procedures and no longitudinal data on the relative importance of curriculum and selection. Nonetheless, at least Kimpton and his colleagues made an effort to analyze their specific situation and had the courage to create a program for their own place and time. NASM publications are filled with suggestions to do just that. NASM is constantly encouraging creative approaches, but there seem to be few takers.

Another considerable issue involves the differences between music teacher-education programs and other teacher-education programs. If an institution wishes to alter its curriculum or the content of coursework, where should it turn? Data from research in general teacher education can be useful, as well as an understanding of NASM philosophies and policies. Research in music education has a role to play. Researchbased approaches would consider principles, information, and findings in all the above-mentioned areas as a basis for analysis and change. In an ideal world, NASM would have the resources to influence the multiple local, state, and regional players who formulate policies for math, early childhood, and other teacher education programs, but those policies have limited relevance for music educators. I hope that NASM will become an even more persuasive voice on behalf of the uniqueness of music education.

Music is different than many other fields. NASM, representing a consensus in the music profession, including music education, places significant emphasis on subject matter expertise. The perception is often that performance is the sine qua non (the essential component) but that is an exaggeration. Music teachers are expected to be musicians, which includes a high level of competence on a "major" instrument. Students major in music because they are already comfortably competent on an instrument and enjoy performing; students may choose a college on the basis of the applied music teachers' reputations and the performance levels of ensembles, rather than the reputation of the music education course sequence. High requirements in performance, requiring three or more years of applied music study, raise few objections from students. Because entrance requirements are so high, most music education majors are better musicians than they need to be to pass any exit teacher certification test. Music education majors likely devote more study to the content they will teach than do other education majors in other disciplines, except perhaps, for other specialists in the arts who follow professionally oriented undergraduate programs. In a sense, music education has already achieved what is often called for in education reform-more subject matter expertise. However, the subject of music is vast, and performance is only one component.

When Noddings (1992, 1) asks "all children can learn but learn what?" she is asking a question that music educators need to wrestle. If you believe, as I do, that specificity in education guidelines needs improvement, then productive change requires a clear vision of what all public school students must know or be able to do in music when they graduate (or at a terminal point in their schooling); educating teachers to teach for vague outcome competencies and dispositions creates impossible problems in structuring multiple, valid teacher education programs. When excellence in performance is of such high importance for music education students, it is logical that the focus of public school music programs will be on group performance. Although performance is the reason that many K-12 students and their teachers are engaged in music, its study can be more than performance. Indeed, performance can be a means of entering the deeper worlds of independent knowledge, perception, and skill. One of our greatest problems is lack of agreement at a level of specificity that matters. If the suggestion is made that all students should be able to sight sing a simple pattern, then there are excellent teachers in the audience who will object. Mention any specific element of knowledge or skill such as recognition of specific compositions, genres, or styles, and similar concerns will be raised. I find it strange that there are music teacher educators who have worked through collegiate and graduate school curricula that are highly specific and demanding in terms of knowledge and skills who seem unwilling to use a simpler version of the same approach to determine what should be done with regard to specific musical learning.

The issue of methods courses in teacher preparation curricula further compounds this complexity. Understandably but unfortunately, those courses focus less on what should be taught than on how it should be taught. How is the principle content of courses taught on the basis of such common methods in music education as Kodaly, Orff, Dalcroze, and Gordon (see any of their work). The question of how may also be the focus of courses in ethnic music, the organization of instrumental instruction, and observation in the schools. Proficiency examinations in all methods courses could test this hypothesis to determine not only whether the course could be omitted from a student's program but also the extent of precourse knowledge and competence. In addition, such examinations would tighten up the courses. On a brave day, we may suggest proficiency examinations in applied music as well, with study beyond proficiency being a student elective.

Although NASM recommends that the curriculum should have electives, local program responsibility makes an enforcement of this recommendation difficult and accredited teacher education programs exist with no electives. Recommendation is the key word. NASM does not force the presence of electives in programs. Doing so would intrude on institutional autonomy, an attribute NASM has pledged to respect. For NASM, the primary purpose of electives is to provide students with \opportunities to gain breadth. That purpose is understandable but inadequate in my proposal for reform because there must also be scholarly depth in some of the electives. A single, introductory course is seldom marked by intellectual rigor and most current electives offer a series of courses in multiple subjects. NASM standards for music teacher education curricula indicate the degree program should have a significant professional focus, thus graduates may not be broadly educated if institutions themselves do not require such breadth. Requirements in music, music education, general teacher education, and general studies often reach the 120-semester hour cap that some states enforce. That loss of flexibility causes breadth to be the sole responsibility of curricula designers. The student has no time to pursue a special interest or explore new areas of study.

Another issue is the high degree of student activity required in music teacher education programs. Students are constantly involved in ensemble rehearsals and performances. The pedagogical impact of all this effort depends largely on the extent to which ensemble rehearsals are primarily opportunities for teaching music or for simply raising the technical and artistic level without much reference to why what is being done, is being done. Ensembles play an important role in the development of musicians, but activity alone cannot necessarily be equated with learning. One college that champions value-added learning accepts public performance in an ensemble as evidence of four years of learning competence. But participation alone does not equal competence. Ensemble experience needs to teach different things; not every ensemble needs to have the same goals. Some institutions' replication of performance in professional circumstances is consistent with the overall music program mission. The research question we should ask ourselves is how ensemble and other activities are or are not building the competencies that we expect. Ensembles have changed since the formulation of teacher education curricula. Today's college wind ensemble differs in purpose and philosophy from the college band, which had a shared philosophy with the high school band.

Lagemann (1993, 3), discussing general teacher education, argues that in addition to mastering subject matter, all teachers need more intense and sustained exposure to the arts and humanities; this suggestion should apply to music educators who may be called on to work with general education teachers. If imagination and personal identity are nurtured in the arts and humanities and opened to everyone through literature, music, painting, drama, philosophy, and history, music teachers should be especially well prepared in those areas. Few qualities are more essential in the preparation of teachers. It is through the arts and humanities that we can learn cooperation, responsibility, tolerance, discipline, and the other elements of good citizenship discussed earlier. That competence is in process as well as product. Arnold (2005, 51) suggests that a person lacking a grasp of what a given experience is like cannot acquire it by any amount of talk alone. He or she has to be subjected to the experience to sense how it feels. The process of creating art (meaning more than music alone) can only be understood in terms of the product. Process, a justification for multiple music methods courses, often lacks clarity in the resulting product.

Procedures can be applied successfully or unsuccessfully. Products are expected to be successful. The relationship between procedure and product needs far more attention and a greater understanding of the ways work in other disciplines can help teachers resolve those issues as they occur in their professional lives. Process thinking by professional educators suggests processes antithetical to the best thinking in music (see Zemelman, Daniels, and Hyde 2005, 226).

As stated earlier, the NASM guidelines for curricular structure and its standards regarding general education provide a framework for accomplishing what has been recommended above. Continued research and gathering of data will help NASM and its member institutions develop better standards as they continue their efforts to do so. But far more important is the need for research and data that will help specific institutions and developers of curricula and coursework make thoughtful and effective decisions at the local level. It is important to remember that all sets of requirements, whether national or local, go only so far. Requirements provide a basis for individual work and action first to meet the requirements but eventually to go beyond them, and to use what has been gained through them to be effective in the field.

Professional Development

Suggestions for improving teaching are primarily found in the literature on professional development; those include reflection on the core characteristics needed for successful teacher preparation. A number of thinkers have written about professional development in music education and suggested specific, unproven, short-term experiences. Documented successful professional development programs in general teacher education required time frames of regular, whole school work, for a period of as much as three years, and included extensive resources and support from educational laboratories according to Northwest Education (2005), Mid-continent for Education and Learning (McREL; 2006), Holdzkom (2002), and others (Au, Hoffman, and other articles from Rethinking Schools, Winter 2005- 2006; Ingvarson, Meiers, and Beavis 2005; The Link 2006; the National Education Association [NEA]). To elaborate, those documented successful professional development programs focused on specific objectives, had a long duration (thirty to eighty hours on a topic and some as long as 160 hours), used active learning, and often asked teachers to learn in the same manner as their students. Such programs appear to be coherent, use data on student weaknesses, including observing and analyzing students' learning behaviors, and involve the majority of the teachers in a school. Collective teacher participation seems to be a key component; one program found it necessary to involve more than 75 percent of the teachers. These mentoring programs offer both technical and emotional support and are seldom focused on teaching the standards. The initial success with professional development is promising because public school personnel and education laboratories can implement induction programs that are more efficacious than student teaching. Those induction programs provide an authentic context, and what is learned is usually generalizable throughout the school system. In addition, inspired by alternative certification and the success of lengthy, focused professional development programs, school systems and state departments of education are funding induction programs for beginning teachers, and presently more than half of beginning teachers are involved with a mentoring or induction program. The budgeting ($5,000 per teacher in Boston) for professional development demonstrates the importance school boards and administrators are placing on this avenue as the most promising means to improve teaching and student achievement.

Those facts indicate that mentoring and professional development are seen as more promising than changing teacher education programs in colleges and universities, although change in teacher education is also desired by an increasing number of critics. Such a change continues to be delayed by the lack of agreement on curriculum focus between school and university personnel. University professors of music education are less satisfied with present public school music education than are the school principals, those responsible for its implementation. Those university professors appear to be reasonably satisfied with their present teacher preparation programs, a discouraging element in any discussion of change. Discussions in music education departments focus, almost solely, on what courses to offer and which ones should be required. The initial success of professional development is encouraging because it offers evidence that public school personnel and education laboratories can implement induction programs that are more efficacious than student teaching. The criticism of professional development with teachers educating teachers makes little sense. When change is the goal, the criticism is difficult to understand because these long-term professional development programs are established for change whereas student teaching (teachers educating teachers) is designed to maintain present ideas and practices.

The current short- and long-term school-based professional development programs in music education, unfortunately, do not meet present needs. Professional development in music education requires that teachers with similar responsibilities and comparable programs study, over time, with experts in that discipline. The professional development of choral teachers should be the responsibility of the state or regional American Choral Directors Association (ACDA), not the teacher's principal or the local university. The competencies required for the secondary music teacher are dissimilar to those of the K-8 teacher; the secondary schools have a curriculum based on performance of high-quality music under expert guidance, whereas K- 8, though supposedly sequential, is often a collection of random experiences, some related to competence in music and others related to interest or to other subjects in the curriculum. The definition of music education, often expected to be interchangeable with arts education, is vague at best, a major obstacle to any effort at professional development. Not only the desired experiences but also the teaching context differs between elementary and secondary music education. The bre\adth, together with the vagueness of what constitutes an education in music, encourages the politicization of its importance in the education of all students. The all-inclusive voluntary national standards mean that not even music teachers are sure of what is important to teach. Individuals of all stripes can find essential musical outcomes missing from the curriculum or find that music requires resources not justified by value received.

Teacher Evaluation

Little or no research exists to suggest that data from evaluation of music teachers are promising to identify strengths and weaknesses. Teacher evaluation reveals that participating in public performance through concerts, contests, and festivals have a positive influence on students' performing competence. Entrance examinations to graduate programs do not claim to measure previous or possible teaching competence. Teacher certification examinations are not thought of highly nor do those examinations provide feedback to institutions about the strengths and weaknesses of their graduates. In a survey by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (Wineburg 2006), researchers found that few institutions answered queries as to how they used assessment data to improve student learning. The National Board of Professional Teaching Standards' (NBPTS) primary strength has been to get teachers to think about their teaching-music teachers who have passed the examination have expressed that its primary benefit was that it required them to clearly formulate their teaching objectives. For education in general, the California Performance Assessment for California Teachers (PACT), holds the most promise. In that assessment, teachers must plan and teach a learning segment, videotape and analyze their instruction, collect student work, analyze student learning, and reflect on their practices, a process similar to the NBPTS. Pecheone and Chung (2006) report that teachers enjoyed this process and thought that they had learned from it. The downside is that the high cost of the process makes widespread implementation of PACT unlikely. Teacher evaluation also reveals what is important to stakeholders about the music program. Research by Saville Kushner (2005), a British evaluator, produced unexpected and disheartening data. He conducted a typical evaluation of a school in the Hispanic area of Boston and his report was rejected. This community, proud of its school, wanted the evaluation to report on the success of the school picnic and sports and honors days; these were high points in the school year and informed parents of what they wanted to know about their school and its activities in relationship to their culture. Good evaluation is clearly an art, not a science.

Vocational Programs Often Lack in Scholarship

A tentative conclusion that can be drawn from the arduous search for data and for a consensus of belief to create better music teacher education programs is that undocumented apprenticeship thinking in teacher education may overwhelm long-term aims. The term academic is used 811 times (and scientifically based 110) in the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), yet the academic goals of NCLB are no more feasible than was the vision to be accomplished by Goals 2000. Yet, the department of education allows for professional judgments only in cases in which the current research base is scant (Towne 2005). We know that music is more than an academic subject. We now know from the excellent analysis of the AERA data that almost no scientifically based research exists to justify present practices in teacher education. The best, controlled studies fail to account for the unknowns that plague most research, leaving us more confident about what we do not know than about what we do.

The pressing need is to make better, more informed, judgments about our beliefs. The ability to make better judgments does not come from an apprentice-oriented education or unevaluated experiences. Extensive, successful, public school experience does not correlate highly with an interest in research, writing, and scholarship. Teachers and teacher educators need to be citizens of the world and to have scholarly competencies gained outside a school of music. For that to happen, we need a major emphasis in teacher education on how scholars in various fields address issues and solve problems. Liberal arts courses should be places of the mind. College is a time for thinking, an opportunity for knowing, and an important environment for improving one's ability to reason. A broad education that stresses knowledge and thinking in multiple subjects enables one to make better decisions on the important values in life. The Carnegie Foundation, under Ernest Boyer (1990) and Lee Shulman (2004), has promoted the scholarship of teaching, an idea that has met resistance from other members of the academy, understandably, as scholarship in the liberal arts and humanities is prerequisite for any scholarship in teaching. Both kinds of scholarship are presently absent in music teacher education. The liberal arts teach us about human nature, about social behavior, about ethics, about values, and about ourselves and the important role of the arts. The liberal arts outcomes that I stress often occur, with more meaning, outside the classroom. Participation in political and social organizations and fraternities, working on campus projects or the school newspaper, or employment at the local library or bookstore often contributes to a broad education and productive participation in society. A level of scholarship is needed to identify issues and to correctly interpret the results of research and discussions.

If teachers are to learn as their students learn, music teachers must have the competencies required for responsible citizens in a democratic society. Mark Bauerline (2006), an English professor at Emory University and former research director at the National Endowment for the Arts, champions the need for more and better scholarship. Only with serious study in nonvocational courses can music educators work intelligently and cooperatively with other teachers when music is to be integrated into the curriculum, because integration implies deeper understanding not examples for interest and motivation. Bauerline argued that less time is being spent on core studies and that students know little about history, civics, literature and the arts, geography, and politics. He believes that this kind of knowledge can provide an answer to the social demands of mass culture. He also believes that visual culture (incorporating all visual encounters into the school curriculum) stretches the concept of visual arts education. His concerns for a lack of core knowledge by teacher educators are justified as illustrated by one teacher educator who spent the entire semester sensitizing her preservice students to sexism (social justice) by having them visit toy stores and documenting the number and kinds of toys designed for males and females (Hoffman 2005-2006).

If students are to have a meaningful encounter with music, they need to be able to think about how they experience it-cognitively, emotionally, and physically-because it is through thinking about the experience (usually a performance) that one finds meaning. As there are multiple modes of scholarship-philosophy, history, literature, theology, science, and the arts-music teachers should have at least a nodding acquaintance with each of these modes and reasonable competence in history, the other arts, and the humanities. Teaching has no value if the content taught has no value. Teachers need to be able to take the diverse elements of the student's world and that of the world of the arts and merge those elements into a coherent whole.

A Music Teacher Education Program Based on What We Know and Believe

Although more could be offered on topics affecting music teacher education, I have presented the available evidence on a few important topics that can enlighten our thinking about a more reasonable teacher education program in music, one that would not differ substantially in the other arts.

Results

Bono, arts advocates, and officials at several governmental levels have made it clear that, when possible, policy beliefs should be supported by valid research. Although we have little or no valid research in the music education literature, applicable data are available.

1. The research of Sanders (as cited in Kupermintz 2003) and his data from Tennessee teachers offers some confidence that better teachers can substantially improve student achievement. Unfortunately, Sanders identified only better teachers and not better teaching methods. In the present, there are no valid "better teacher" data for music teachers; the research that has addressed this issue has been inadequately conceptualized. The data on enhanced student achievement in music are based almost entirely on the effect of private teachers (e.g., any of Rosina Lhevinne or Dorothy DeLay's work) and conductors of school performing groups (e.g., Richardson (Texas) High School band or Los Angeles Youth Symphony). A few studies have identified what successful music teachers do but to date, the same competencies also match the practices of less successful teachers. There is a general belief that inadequately educated music teachers are graduating but we have no helpful data to indicate the specifics of any differences. More than a few arts advocates believe that certified teachers are not more competent than uncertified teachers or teachers certified through "quickie" programs.

2. The public and the education establishment agree that a public school education should enable graduates to be knowledgeable and discriminating about exercising responsibilities in an American democracy.

3. A focused and lengthy professional development and induction or mentoring program is our most promising venture in preparin\g better teachers.

4. NASM flexibility with respect to teacher education allows students to complete a degree with a heavy vocational focus that, without competent local guidance, can discourage a broad education.

5. Summaries of the best research in education of the past several decades provide little support for present course requirements in teacher education.

6. Some teacher tests required for certification that are similar to NBPTS are expensive and time consuming, but promising. NBPTS places a low emphasis on disciplinary content.

7. Students believe that advising is not important and that self- advising is possible.

Although the preponderance of those data inform us of what we do not know, they are reliable data and sufficient to stimulate deeper thought about our programs and an opportunity to confirm our beliefs about what is important in music education and music teacher education. The data on outcomes that Americans expect of K-12 schooling-namely, responsible persons who are educated to participate meaningfully in a moral American democracy and who can acquire and retain satisfying work-has long been a constant. The data on the lack of common content in required coursework and the lack of effectiveness of required courses and experiences in teacher education programs including methods courses and student teaching are new. We have a considerable body of literature on beliefs about how teachers should act, their dispositions, their knowledge, their moral character, and their beliefs. There are inadequate admission requirements to teacher education programs, meaningless student teaching evaluations, and no accepted competency measures for music teachers.

A Defensible and Improved Music Teacher Education Program

In light of this information (data, beliefs, and dispositions), can we deduce what coursework or experiences should be required of everyone seeking teacher certification in music? A reasonable approach is that when doubt exists about the value of an experience or a course for all students, that experience or course should be an elective. Elective coursework provides flexibility to any program. Electives accommodate individual differences, differences in program emphasis, and differences in career goals. They also enhance student strengths, free up resources to correct deficiencies, and give students what is most important about an education: options. Electives require a strong advising program especially in light of our limited knowledge of how best to prepare music teachers for the public schools.

In this article, I have put emphasis on the education and music education components in teacher education and not on what is known about required music competencies. With the current, almost nonexistent, reports about the subject matter competence of graduates, our knowledge of what should be required is sparse. The lack of concern about a public school music teacher's subject matter competence is understandable as music teacher education is heavily weighted with musical competencies, the public and school administrators have no clue, and there is presently an expectation of considerable musical skill at the time of entry into the music teacher education program. The subject-matter emphasis, however, does not prevent students who are not musically adequate from being admitted and graduating; for example, competence in determining the musical value of scores viewed or music heard is not assured. With respect to admission, the audition is an inadequate measure of musicality. We should consider other competencies and characteristics in determining eligibility for admission. Researchers in education found that students who attended elite institutions were more competent; those personal characteristics should be a guide for admission to all music teacher education programs. (In music education as in general education, program admission is nearly synonymous with graduation and teacher certification.) The belief in the power of the audition is strong; applied music faculty assume a relationship between performance and musicality, and this assumption influences the appraisal of the student's promise for specific programs such as applied music, music education, music technology, and theory and composition. With this fuzzy definition of musicianship, the relationship of the current required sequence of music courses to success as a public school music teacher is unclear.

The Music Curriculum

The suggested curriculum in teacher education remains tripartite: music, pedagogy (education and music education), and opportunities in the liberal arts. Students will always request more practical courses in their major than needed, in the hope of advancing their careers; the more vocational the curriculum, the more disdain for studying the liberal arts. A current belief is that the best teachers have a depth of knowledge in at least one other subject than music. The joy of performance is such that in conservatory- oriented programs music education students value little else. Arostegui (2004) found that music education majors saw little value even in music history or music theory.

One can justifiably argue that there is no sequence to education and music education courses; it consists of a series of introductory courses. The same argument applies to some music requirements, and those presently required, nonsequential, introductory music courses can become important elective general education courses for the music education major. The importance of the course depends on student need, competence, and interest, as well as the wisdom of the adviser. So much can be learned from music courses (skills and knowledge) that advisers must bear the responsibility of ensuring that all students completing the teacher education sequence have musical competence plus the academic knowledge required for effective public school teaching.

Some music education courses are often included with the NASM recommendation of 50 percent course work in music, which makes specific recommendations within music difficult. Because minimal subject matter competency for effective teaching is apparently established with as few as four or five collegelevel courses, and the research in education indicates that more courses do not improve teacher effectiveness, additional flexibility within the music component is possible. This flexibility can strengthen the music education student's competence by an emphasis that accommodates the wide background, talent, and interest of students. The introduction of electives in the music component as a part of music education, however, requires a means of determining mastery in the essential, required music competencies. Competence in musical analysis, history, and literature is likely an essential ability, applicable to all programs within a school of music. That, and other required competencies, should not be determined in terms of seat time, hours, or semesters. I used music theory earlier in this article as an example in which language and content are a poor match. The content of theory courses varies widely between institutions although there has been no national comparison of syllabi. Such a comparison might reveal little about actual student competence if the data from the study of education syllabi apply to syllabi of music courses. Traditionally, institutions have been responsible for developing curricula, specific expectations, and tests. It is fair to surmise that most institutions holding NASM accreditation address principles of common practice like harmony, for example, although they may not use the same textbooks, curricula sequences, or have the same expectations for proficiency beyond the fundamentals. Priorities may be elsewhere with respect to music theory. Thus, a widely accepted music competency assessment is essential; ideally it should be coordinated at the national level with understandable rubrics describing minimal course-level competence. A national level is important as Americans are mobile and reciprocal music teacher certification is important. The guidelines for those assessments can be expected to change as our knowledge of the essentials increases and public school music education reaches higher levels of effectiveness.

General Education

At present, few states require specific courses in general education and when they do, those are little more than superficial survey courses. With the primary purpose of schooling seen as functioning in and improving American democracy, a requirement of in- depth knowledge of political science equivalent to at least two sequential courses seems minimal. Bok's (2006) two suggestions are a basic course on America's role in the world and a second course on how to understand another culture in a life with increasing intercultural contacts. Teachers need to think critically and creatively, they need to be problem solvers, they need to be able to establish priorities among experiences and values, they need to be able, to some extent, to relate music to the rest of American culture and relate music to the other arts. Those goals are best learned in a setting in which the life of the mind is stressed, including the musical components of the liberal arts. The more narrowly focused work of skills and pedagogy should have a lower priority. In the traditional four-year undergraduate degree, we should require approximately twenty-four hours of liberal arts, including study in political science that would increase individual understanding of fundamental political principles and avoid indoctrination. Twenty-four hours is lower than many core requirements for general studies in colleges and universities. It is six hours lower than the bottom of the range expressed in NASM guidelines. Again, the issue is not the framework, but rather the details that we create within it. Entering the traditional four- year undergraduate degree, approximatel\y twenty-four hours of liberal arts would be available, including study in political science.

Music Education

The beliefs about personal characteristics are as important as any of the course work and require continuing thought and a reasonable approach to their adoption. A tentative list of personal characteristics likely exists in the minds of many individuals but they have not been well articulated or evaluated.

Based on the data available on music education literature and beliefs, most of the specific requirements in music teacher education should be dropped. Although states, at the request of school administrators, certify music teachers for all grades and all subdisciplines, there is no cogent reason for teacher education programs to accept this blanket approach. With the resources (four years) available, music teacher education programs should prepare students well in the focus they elect. The focus may be secondary school band, early childhood education, or middle school vocal and choral. Should a different focus after graduation become desirable, graduate programs and summer school offerings are available.

With an elective program in pedagogy (education and music education), additional care and thought of advisers and students will be necessary. Bok (2006) mentions how unsatisfactory advising in colleges has been; this is certainly true in music education. In an improved curriculum, informed advising must play an active and critical role.

We could easily accommodate the current music education competencies in a twenty-first century undergraduate program because approximately thirtysix semester hours are available (excluding sixty in music, twenty-four in liberal arts or electives), including the savings of an entire semester of required student teaching. We could require four courses, two core courses and two others selected from a list restricted by type or focus or both. Students would select those thirty-six elective hours from music education, music, and education course work that provides program focus and accommodates student needs and interests chosen cooperatively by student and adviser.

One required core course would be the foundational music education course where the discipline of music education is outlined in terms of philosophy, history, and the purposes of music education in the schools. In this course, the student would learn what it means to be a music educator and what his or her responsibilities are to the profession. The second required course, on the American public school, would prepare the student for teaching through videotapes, interactive computer simulations, discussion of ethnographies, on campus microteaching, and issues of discipline, motivation, and policies.

The remaining two required electives would be one course in a college of education for the student who is preparing to teach in other subjects, and a methods course aligned with the student's focus. Twenty-four credit hours remain for indepth study in the focus, to explore other dimensions of music, or to tap helpful course work in teaching and learning. The minimum requirements reflect the results of research conducted by educators and reported in recent research summaries. Should music education researchers delve further into teacher education, additional or altered core course work could be added through valid advising or certification requirements. The music teacher certification tests unique to specific states, or PRAXIS II, do not justify additional course requirements at this time.

Conducting should be an elective. The ability to conduct is not essential for early childhood educators, the recent NASM suggested emphases, or other curricular focuses such as music and business. The ability to conduct is a skill in which student competency varies considerably. Some students enter college with considerable stick technique and have more personality on the podium than other students acquire from three semesters of conducting courses. The content of conducting courses ranges from score study to actually conducting other members of the class a few times during the course of the semester. That conducting practice with other music majors does not produce competencies transferable to public school teaching. Bok (2006) also suggests that professors should not spend valuable time teaching skills better learned at work or become excessively preoccupied with first day on the job competencies. His wise admonition certainly applies to conducting, in which more experience is gained in the first one or two days of employment than in two or more semesters of course work. In a curricular focus in which conducting competence is essential, indepth study with accomplished conductors should be required (from the list of electives).

Methods courses should also be elective in addition to the one required. A second methods course that aligns with the student's focus should be highly recommended. The required course for all students would teach them how to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the various teaching strategies, what is developmentally appropriate, and the known effectiveness of the various strategies on the basis of research findings and evaluated experience. I suggest that a second methods course in the area of a student's interest be recommended (and quite possibly required); one that emphasizes what is to be taught in that area and that relates the methodology to established learning theory in music. Methods courses are difficult to defend when there is no basis for suggesting that one method is better than another and the fact that ultimately no method is inherently good or bad. Our general inability to address what matters or why it matters is a staggering limitation for our research (St. Clair 2005).

Methods employed successfully in general music require a level of competency not possible in the traditional elementary methods survey course. The purveyors of teacher certification in the well-known methods of Orff, Kodaly, Dalcroze

Source: Arts Education Policy Review

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