Charter School Instrumental Music Enrollment Trends and Perceptions

The growing number of charter schools in Florida has potential to impact enrollment in arts programs as well as music programs such as band. The purpose of the research is to examine arts enrollment trends, especially music courses, in charter schools during the 2019-20 school year.  The research questions are: 1. How many types of arts programs are students enrolled in at charter elementary and secondary schools?  2. How does charter school music course enrollment compare with overall Florida schools? 3. What percentage of charter school students are enrolled in specific music courses? 4. Do significant differences exist between the mean percent of students enrolled in charter music programs when differentiated by total school enrollment, school grade, percent of minorities, and percent of economically disadvantaged students?  To address these research questions, a database was compiled using Florida Department of Education reports such as the Course Enrollment Survey.  Results show that charter schools are less likely to offer arts courses when compared to all Florida schools. 15.6% of elementary and 21.6% of secondary charter schools, for example, did not offer any arts courses.  When charter schools did offer music courses, students enrolled in music courses at a lower rate. When compared to all Florida schools, for example, charter schools were about 12% lower in percent of students enrolled in middle school music courses, and 9% lower for high school music courses.  This is a larger gap than the average of 4% difference in enrollment rates nationwide.  The results also showed that the types of music courses offered at the charter schools is much the same as traditional schools, but at a different distribution of total music courses offered at each school. Band and choir remain popular and constitute about half of total music course offerings.  It is interesting to note, however, that the trend moves away from almost a third of middle school enrollment in music appreciation to having over a third of high school students enrolled in other instrumental ensembles and music theory/technology courses.  This result suggests that there may be a trend away from large ensembles in middle school towards high school music ensembles that can be more flexible in size as well as possibly appeal to a diverse student group. Results also showed that the size of school and school grade significantly correlate with the percent of students enrolled in music, but not the percent of minority or disadvantaged students.  This result reflects previous research that shows that charter school characteristics often make it difficult for charter schools to offer arts courses.  The market approach to education means that charters are competing for students. High stakes testing scores (school grades) and special programs often take precedence over arts courses.  Charter schools are also often smaller than traditional schools, which again may limit course offerings. Also, charter school philosophy of achieving more than traditional schools with less money can mean less funding for more expensive arts programs such as band.