High School Musicals
You can chalk this up to "oh well, that's just the way it is"; some schools have more resources from alums and parents than others. Roosevelt has a long history of putting on plays and musicals so this isn't some new thing. But I think high schools, at different points in their history, have always put on plays (with musicals tending to be a lot more expensive to stage).
I bring this up both to ask the question, "Is this fair? Does it matter?" and to ask "Is it a good thing to have so much attention/resources/efforts focused on non-core academics?" Athletics and arts are a major way to keep kids involved in high school so they are wonderful at keeping some kids in school. Is it important to have what would be considered (in athletic terms) schools that are farm teams for music and drama? Should that be important for high schools to have in this age of deep concern over academics?
I'll end with a letter to the Times on this issue that has another take on this issue:
" 'High school musicals' on the escalating costs of high-school drama productions, provides yet another example of how American adults are chipping away at the experience of being a child.
Biologically and psychologically, humans are engineered to go through a staged lifecycle. Our nation's adults are short-circuiting that natural process. Our economic greed drives us to view them, not as children, but as a market to be sold increasingly adult products. Interweaving our adult egos with their activities, we deny them the joy of experiencing unstructured play by making winning the objective of all activity.
As adults, we seek personal recognition and a furthering of our own ambitions by demanding that they perform as professionals, not the curious and exploring amateurs that they naturally are. All of this represents a massive failure of our needed role as grounded, sensible adults in the lives of our children. This failure does not come without consequences.
Modern medicine is allowing people to live much longer lives. Our children will have plenty of time to live ambition-driven, stressed-out lives and to lust after endless consumer products.
If, as a society, we genuinely loved our children, we would allow them to enjoy a few years of innocence unencumbered by our frenetic adult pathology.
— Dick Schwartz, Bellevue
Comments
At the same time, when the hot topic of Roosevelt came up in the halls of my child's elementary school, one of the parents was talking about how her niece from Laurelhurst did not get in. She then went on to talk about if you were to look at the positives about her not getting in, it was that everything is so competitive at Roosevelt - to get on the soccer team, or in the drama or music program you have to be the best with lots of supplemental classes since early childhood to even be accepted. THAT does not seem right at all. I don't want my child feeling like they can't participate in extracurricular activities because he or she is not good enough. Is it really THAT hard to get in the drama program?
It's good to teach your children to be competitive, especially in high school as they prepare for college, but there should be plenty of opportunities to be involved in extracurricular activities without being the best in the Northwest.
I'm not sure how to fix this - You could go back to the income sharing idea or enlist the business community to help, but it's a tough call - I'm very surprised to read about how expensive these productions are. I'm really not sure what the solution is.
I know Seattle is no Mercer Island, but the Mercer Island School District has a very interesting district wide fundraising effort. It's called the Mercer Island Schools Foundation. You can find info about it on the Mercer Island School District web site. The foundation fundraises to support the district as a whole. They support the arts, academic enrichment, tutoring, teacher training and recruitment, foreign language, senior projects and so much more. They take direct dollars from parents, but mainly go out into the business community to raise money through an annual phone-a-thon and a community business breakfast. They also do a lot of grant writing.
Again, I know we are not Mercer Island, but the premise seems equitabe. The funds are distributed equally among schools and programs. They support the districts budget as a whole, and support a well rounded education experience. Perhaps something similar in Seattle would help eliminate some of the disparity between schools?
Deidre
http://www.mercerislandschoolsfoundation.com/
However, since it is a tiny school, if you want to work hard and be part of the performance you can be, unlike the larger schools, where drama is like a varsity sport, just because you want to learn and participate, doesn't mean you will get a chance to.
Some schools have more levels of performances- musicials but also plays, films & "talent nights", giving all students a chance to develop skills that will serve them throughout their school career and can flame an interest, that otherwise might have died.
I would never say that the arts are not "academic".
I am currently reading a biography of Einstein for example, and he was an avid violinist and found it added depth to his enjoyment of life as well as giving his brain a chance to work out problems.
There is more to education than what can be learned sitting in a desk