Policy expert points out that inequities in music education reflect society at large

Mike Blakeslee, the executive director and CEO of the National Association for Music Education, was recently a participant at YSM's sixth Symposium on Music in Schools, which focused on “how to ensure that every child in every city in America has access to an active music life,” YSM Associate Dean Michael Yaffe has said.

Among those invited to participate were public-school and university teachers and administrators, foundation leaders, music-education scholars, and public-policy experts who worked, Yaffe said, to “help us craft and complete a declaration about why music has the potential to change children’s lives and have an impact on issues of exclusion.” The purpose of the document, a draft of which was sent to participants ahead of the Symposium, is to “encourage the creation of ecosystems” that support the goal of guaranteeing children in city schools the same opportunities their suburban counterparts enjoy.

In America's cities, Blakeslee pointed out, "we have these stark contrasts in terms of haves and have nots. If we don't have a commitment to equity for all of our children, then we're not going to have equity in music education, either. We’ve constructed a system where the self-interest of many constituencies is not social justice. You can tell the story," but “the real question for me is, what are we going to do to make [change] really happen?”