On Wednesday, September 11, music parent and Music for All President and CEO Dr. Jeremy Earnhart spoke at the Indiana State Board of Education Meeting about proposed changes that would remove Fine Arts as a requirement from state graduation standards. Here is the text of his remarks:
Workforce Development is Fine Arts, Fine Arts is Workforce Development. My name is Jeremy Earnhart and my wife, Gwendolyn, and I are proud parents of Kierstyn, who is fulfilling her Fine Arts requirement and Physical Education requirement as a trumpet player through Band at Brownsburg High School — she earned her academic letter last year, and is also ranked in the top 100 of the 2027 class by the Indiana Girls Basketball Recruiting Report. That is to say, public school is AWESOME, so long as we require and provide a well-rounded education for all students. I stand here for the many folks who are unable today as they are participating fully in the workforce after fulfilling their Fine Arts requirements — like my wife, Gwen who was drum major of her marching band, and is now a grant accountant for the Indianapolis Public Schools. Fine Arts IS Workforce Development. There is simply no time for video games, meth, or unplanned pregnancy during a 12-hour marching band rehearsal day.
As President and CEO of the Bands of America producer, Music for All, we know that in the next two months, over 200 high school marching bands will perform at Lucas Oil Stadium, bringing per Visit Indy over 30 million dollars in economic impact, by thousands of students from across the country, fulfilling their Fine Arts requirement. While many states are adding to their fine arts requirements at the middle and high school levels, If the current proposal stands, Indiana will be in the unenviable position of standing with Las Vegas’s, Nevada, as the only other state in America in the last 30 years to remove Fine Arts as a requirement from state graduation standards.
Rather than specializing kids into specific business tools, we must empower them to become economic-generating Swiss army knives — not to build professional artists, but professional people — through continuing to specify specifically and by design for graduates, standards-based Fine Arts education. Fine Arts is Workforce Development, Workforce Development is Fine Arts.
I urge you to keep what is working in our current Core 40 and continue to require Fine Arts.
 Jeremy L. Earnhart, Ed.D
For Indiana music educators: Time is of the Essence!
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