Not on the Test!

Mar 14 2008

For students and parents who may be stressed out over testing, here’s a lullaby for the times. Grammy Award-winning children’s artist Tom Chapin offers the “Not on the Test” song and video to raise awareness about the importance of music education in all classrooms and to express concern about what is missing from American public education. “Not on the Test,” with music and lyrics by Chapin and his long-time collaborator John Forster, and produced by PST Records, can be downloaded at www.notonthetest.com.

Additional information and advocacy links can be found here.

Comments 7 Comments | Permalink
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Posted in Advocacy, Arts Education, Educators, Music Education, Songwriting, Teaching
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    Dale Lewis
    Mar 14, 2008 at 7:46 pm

    Thanks for posting this. My school is in the midst of our annual testing, Florida’s FCAT, and this piece struck a real “chord.” I’m passing this on to my fellow music educators and I posted a reference to your article on my music ed blog.

    dcavalier
    Apr 2, 2008 at 10:13 am

    Hi Dale,

    Thanks for your comment! I’m glad this resonated with you and what your school is currently going through. Thanks for passing it along. I hope your colleagues enjoy it!

    Debbie

    Marc
    Apr 13, 2008 at 7:58 pm

    For those of us who actually received a decent public school music education we should consider ourselves very lucky, since exposure to the arts has a profound and lasting impact on how we think and relate to others. Hopefully, if the current political climate changes we will see a re-prioritization in this area. Certainly, the death of NCLB (away from high-stakes testing) could swing the pendulum back in the direction of arts education; in conjunction with a resurgent economy, we could see a Renaissance (of sorts) in arts education.

    Music College
    Apr 27, 2008 at 5:23 pm

    Wow, this is great! I ran into your blog completely by accident to.

    dcavalier
    May 26, 2008 at 6:22 pm

    Dear Marc,

    Thank you for your post. I sure hope you are right!

    Debbie

    Terry Barker
    Nov 16, 2008 at 1:14 am

    Dear Debbie,

    Wow! This song immediately brought to mind one of my all-time favorite songs, “Flowers are Red” by Tom’s brother, the late Harry Chapin. Though Harry’s been gone many years now, that song still rings true, and is also about the homogenization of students by applying some arbitrary standard, squashing creativity in children. “Flowers Are Red” seems to loudly resonate in “It’s Not on the Test” and “It’s not on the Test” is unfortunately true in far too many ways. I am hoping the new administration under Obama will bring a sense of balance to this climate of over-testing in education.

    -Terry

    Debbie Cavalier
    Nov 16, 2008 at 8:00 pm

    Thanks Terry. I’m not familiar with Flowers are Red but will be sure to check it out!

    Debbie

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