COLUMN ONE : Music in Schools: A Sour Note : Sputnik and Proposition 13 put a damper on teaching of the subject. But new pressures could prompt schools to start changing their tune.

Donald J. Dustin’s hands keep time with his words as he recalls the glory days more than a decade ago when he could field 200 musicians for the halftime show at a high school football game.

Dustin, who resigned as band director at Locke High School in 1983 to become director of performing arts for the Los Angeles Unified School District, then settles back in his chair to deliver his dreary coda: “The band has about 70 students now.”

The once-proud Locke marching band is only one casualty of a decline in music education at public schools in California that started 30 years ago and accelerated during the last decade.

Although modest gains over the last two years hint that the decrescendo may be over, the recovery of music programs in the state’s public schools could be a long time in coming.

Shrinking budgets and a belief that music education was a frill have triggered a cutback of elementary and high school music programs in which generations of students were taught to appreciate music, as well as to sing and to play musical instruments. With fewer programs in place, it was no surprise that the number of music classes and music students had fallen to the lowest levels ever by the mid-1980s, educators say.

Statewide, the number of students playing in high school bands and orchestras was cut in half between 1982 and 1986, from 124,549 to 64,989. The number of junior high and high school students taking other music courses dropped about 25% during the same period, even though student enrollment in grades 7 to 12 held steady at about 2 million.

Nationwide, the decline has been less dramatic. The percentage of junior and senior high students enrolled in music classes remained at about 30% from the end of World War II to the late 1950s, according to the U.S. Department of Education. But by 1960, enrollment had dropped to 28%, and by 1972 to 25%. In 1981, the last year for which such numbers are available, only about 21% of students signed up for music courses, including band, orchestra and choir, as well as music appreciation, theory and history.

Elementary school orchestras, once a fixture at nearly every school in the state, either have been eliminated or have been drastically cut back since the late 1960s. In the Los Angeles school district, once considered a national leader in music education, only about one-fourth of the 420 elementary schools offer instrumental music instruction.

“There was a time when we had an instrumental and choral program at every school, with a regular music teacher assigned to every school, plus a traveling music teacher,” Dustin said.

Now the district has fewer than 25 instrumental music teachers for its elementary schools. Seventy-two traveling music teachers are assigned to 360 elementary schools, and each teaches as many as 1,300 students a week. The remaining 60 elementary schools are on a waiting list.

“My long-term goal is one music teacher for every elementary school or at least one music teacher for every 600 students,” Dustin said. That would require the hiring of at least 300 more music teachers, an expensive and unlikely prospect, he said.

The weekly one-hour lessons by Los Angeles elementary school music teachers are by necessity fast-paced. Fourth-graders, for example, listen to the teacher play a version of a traditional song such as “Shenandoah.” The teacher explains briefly the concepts of melody and chord patterns. Then the children sing and dance to the music.

Critics say that an hour a week isn’t nearly enough.

“You just can’t do the job that way. Cut the roots and the tree dies,” said Dennis Davies, music director for the Arcadia Unified School District, which still employs 10 music teachers for its 10 schools and offers instrument lessons beginning in the fourth grade.

Lack of Interest

Many educators say the cutbacks at the elementary level are responsible for a lack of interest in music among high school students. In the Los Angeles school district, about 20% of students in grades 7 to 12 enrolled in music classes--such as band, orchestra and choir--between the end of World War II and 1978. Now, only 10% enroll in such classes, even though the number of music teachers has remained about the same over the last 20 years.

Before 1960, music was usually a daily lesson in Los Angeles schools. At that time, fourth-graders, for instance, would be taught to sing songs by their music teacher, who would also play classical music on phonographs for them.

The cuts also have come at the top. The number of supervisors heading music programs at California school districts fell from 400 in 1978 to a low of 41 in 1987.

Without those music supervisors--whose job is to make sure that there are enough music teachers and instruments--orchestra and other music classes became especially vulnerable to school boards looking for quick ways to save money, many music educators say.

And because of the resulting sharp decline in the number of music-teaching positions available, college students in the last 10 years have avoided the field, college music educators say. Last summer, qualified music teachers could not be found for 38 available teaching positions around the state, said Judy Gunderson of the Southern California Band and Orchestra Assn., a nonprofit organization that promotes music programs at public schools.

Educators say a rebound in music education may be in the works because of new requirements for admission to the state university system, an influx of Asian students and a renewed interest in adding music to statewide tests measuring students’ achievement. Enrollment in music education statewide has risen by a few thousand for each of the last two years, they say.

Public Persuasion

“There is a slight turnaround, and we’re optimistic and encouraged,” said Francie Alexander, a state associate school superintendent.

State Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig, himself a piano player, wants to start a $100,000 radio and television campaign to persuade the public of the importance of arts education.

“You don’t have to sell math, but when it comes to music, some people see it as a frill,” Alexander said.

A major renovation of music curricula could also come if music is added to the California Assessment Program, a battery of tests that show how individual schools compare in subjects such as math and reading, Alexander said. “What is tested is what gets taught,” she said.

A state task force on arts education, headed by state Assemblyman Sam Farr (D-Carmel), is preparing to release a report recommending that all high school students be required to complete a year of art and music before they can graduate.

Beginning this year, high school students applying for admission to schools in the California State University system must complete two semesters of art and music. UC is considering a similar requirement.

“I think public opinion is starting to support what arts educators have always known--the arts contribute to thinking skills,” said Joan Peterson, an arts consultant to the state Department of Education.

Pollster Louis Harris last year found that 70% of U.S. parents say they would favor a small tax increase to give their children better education in the arts.

But when it comes to asking for more money, said Donald Gunderson, music director at Los Altos High School in Hacienda Heights, “music teachers are the worst lobbyists in the world.”

Gunderson said his school’s award-winning marching band has survived because of strong support by parents and alumni. After a season of football halftime shows, Gunderson said, the students break into smaller jazz and stage ensembles to perform more musically challenging pieces.

Parents Raise Money

Community support also has allowed music programs to survive virtually unscathed in school districts such as Glendale, Long Beach and Burbank, despite fund cutbacks caused by Proposition 13.

In Glendale, as well as in the Palos Verdes Unified School District, parents formed local foundations to raise funds to pay for music teachers and programs.

“For a brief period after Prop. 13 (was passed), instrumental music was reduced considerably,” said Vic Pallos, a spokesman for the Glendale district. Now, the instrumental program in the elementary schools “has really made a comeback,” he said.

Many educators attribute part of the resurgence to an influx of Asians into the community. “A lot of our Chinese and Korean students study the piano and a string instrument,” said music director Davies of the Arcadia school district.

A few bright spots also can be seen in the Los Angeles district.

Reed Junior High School music teacher Yolanda Gardea said she used to take a brass band to nearby elementary schools, hoping to spark interest in her dwindling band and orchestra classes. “It was a real sales job.”

Now, instead of trying to drum up business, the North Hollywood teacher turns away students. “I had 150 students four years ago, and now I have 225 in band and orchestra,” Gardea said.

In addition, more young Latinos aspiring to play in mariachi bands are enrolling in instrument classes, said Gardea and other Los Angeles-area music teachers.

North Hollywood eighth-grader Woody Malone, whose 5-foot, 6-inch frame is dwarfed by the 6-foot string bass that he has to lug home to practice, said he is taking music at Reed because he wants to learn jazz. Classmate Jessica Klatzker said she likes playing her viola because it is relaxing and has “a beautiful sound.”

Some music educators speculate that the decline of music education began with the 1957 launch of Sputnik. Parents and politicians, fearful of falling behind Soviet technology, demanded more emphasis on science and math at the expense of school arts programs.

“Sputnik ended a golden era of music in the 1950s,” said Henry Use, a retired music director and co-chairman of the Legislative Action Coalition for Arts Education. “It stung the American pride, and people asked, ‘If the Russians can do it, why can’t we do it?’ The perception was that we weren’t putting out good engineers, and people called for more science and math requirements that took up music time.”

But it took more than a Soviet satellite to shoot down music education. Voters and their representatives also contributed to the decline.

When the Legislature approved the state’s 1983 school reform laws, enacted to toughen graduation requirements, students were given the choice of taking a foreign language instead of art or music.

“If you’re college-bound, you’re going to take foreign language,” said Su Stauffer, a Northern California parent and longtime music activist.

In 1970, the California Legislature eliminated all music requirements for prospective teachers, who previously were expected to read music, sing and play an instrument.

That change, which was included in legislation creating the state Commission on Teacher Credentialing, probably happened by accident, said Ken Lane, head of teacher training at UC Berkeley’s School of Education. Legislators working on the changes wanted to simplify the credentialing process, as well as to increase teacher training in subjects such as math, science and English, Lane said.

“It turned out to be a demotion for music,” said Lane, who wrote his dissertation on the 1970 Ryan Act, which established state teacher-credentialing laws.

Music appreciation, which traditionally had included memorizing classical music and composers, was discarded from the curriculum at most school districts at about the same time.

With few specially trained music teachers available, most elementary schools have had to rely on regular classroom teachers for music instruction, even though most of them have little or no training in music.

“Elementary school teachers are not prepared to teach music,” said Cecilia Riddell, who teaches a music course at Cal State Dominguez Hills. “They take a one-unit course from me, which is supposed to teach them all they need to know about singing, listening, folk dances and everything else.”

Compounding the problem, said Riddell--who has taught music to classroom teachers for 25 years--is that the current generation of college students training to be teachers learned little themselves about music in public schools.

“When I grew up in Redwood City there was a certain body of literature that everybody was expected to know,” said Riddell, who attended elementary school shortly after the end of World War II. “Pieces like . . . the overture to ‘The Magic Flute’ by Mozart, the ‘Nutcracker Suite.’ Now, I’m astonished how many of my students have never even heard ‘Peter and the Wolf.’ ”