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    And if the students don't pay for it, the school ends up...

    Public Schools Should not Fund School Bands.

    First of all, band is an extra curricular activity for those with interest in it. It is not a hard science or mathematics or course nor does it have the importance of one. It is very hard to make a living off of playing the clarinet, flute, trumpet, piano, etc and only a few ever become great and do make a good living off playing an instrument. Cutting funding for band would allow the school to spend that money to hire more teachers to teach worthwhile classes such as Physics, Calculus, Biology, Chemistry, Statistics, and so on and give students with promising futures to learn a much more valuable skill that could greatly benefit society a better learning environment with less students in a class and more available positions to take such a class. Band on the other hand requires that students have instruments, music books, uniforms, band teachers, etc. And if the students don't pay for it, the school ends up doing so. All of these can cost up to several hundreds of dollars per student. Playing an instrument is a hobby one does in their spare time more than it is a worthwhile trade or skill to learn while making a living like mathematics, science, language, etc and the school should have no buissness using tax dollars to fund a hobby. If school bands should continue to exist and be funded then it should be on their own accord and should either be funded by parents of the students, charities, performances, etc. The people of the United States should not be funding a hobby that is not a likely skill to need to make a living except for the exceptional few when the purpose of a school to equip and train the youth the necessary skills and know-how to become valuable members of society. While there are still crowded classes for hard science courses and mathematics or schools were such classes aren't even offered, the bands at those schools should be cut and the money should go to a worthwhile course that students have a much greater chance of taking advantage of to get into better schools and eventually earn better jobs. Band classes serve little purpose other than train students to play a noisemaker, a skill that nearly all of them will never ever need throughout their lives. Solid science and math courses should have number 1 priority and since schools across the country are having severe budget cuts one of the first things to go should be band classes in order to make sure more valuable classes are available and well equipped

    • https://www.debate.org/debates/Public-Schools-Should-not-Fund-School-Bands./1/