Dear National Association for Music Education,
We firmly believe that the MENC All Eastern Honors Ensembles should be an annual event, rather than merely biennial. This idea would better advance MENC's mission to "advance music education," "encourage the study of music by all," and spark a generation of music-lovers.
The current, biennial All Eastern selection process is extremely unfair because the students who are in 11th grade during the year that they must be nominated for All Eastern have a significant advantage in experience over the students in 10th grade. The National Association for Music Education should be willing to give students more than one opportunity to play in an All Eastern Ensemble. Does MENC really want to uphold the idea that winning is permanent and losing is final?
In 2006, MENC published statistics, which discovered that students with coursework or experience in music performance had a 17.3% higher graduation rate. Additionally, these same students scored 22% higher in English, 20% higher in Math, 57 points higher on the verbal portion of the SAT, and 43 points higher on the math portion of the SAT. Clearly, music is the key in unlocking the successful portion of every student. Can you imagine the possibilities if twice as many people strived to make their musical dreams come true?
We look forward to listening to, if not participating in, the 2010 MENC All Eastern Honors Ensembles.
Signed,
