High school student playing a concert grand piano
All of you who think I’ve got an undying hate of the Kansas City Star take notice…
I’m just as capable of praising them at times as I am of bagging on them.
Yeah, it’s far easier to criticize and even with the newspaper’s diminished capacity in trying to shape local opinion, they’re still the 300 pound gorilla of what passes for local news. Even if too often they cling to their haughty thinking that they know what’s best for Kansas City and Kansas Citians, even when they obviously don’t.
All of that said, they can at times be the voice of reason.
Such is the case today in regard to a faux controversy over the spending of $47,000 to replace a 40 to 50 year-old piano at the Sumner Academy of Arts & Science.
Sumner is a highly respected magnet school in KCK that was ranked 75th in the top 100 high schools nationally by Newsweek in 2005. In 2009 US News & World Report ranked Sumner the 69th best high school in the nation, making it the only high school in the state to make the top 100.
In short, it’s a small school with big ambitions – and that’s a good thing.
So yeah, maybe they could get by with a rundown upright piano like the one I recall from my days at the Bryant School in KCMO. But it’s not about having some schoolmarm play Broadway show tunes before an auditorium filled with kiddos singing along.
Sumner is playing in the big leagues, and in the big leagues having a concert grand that cost less than $50 K is chump change. Don’t believe me? Google it.
While it’s true that Sumner could have bought a refurbished 1925 or 1939 Steinway for quite a bit less, just restoring and refinishing an antique concert grand can run from just under $20,000 to more than $40,000. And there are used Yamaha grand’s going for $39,000 and new Steinway Model D‘s that sell for around $78,000.
Kansas governor Sam Brownback bashing aside, today’s Star editorial supporting Sumner’s piano purchase was spot on and summed it up just right:
“Now playing: another budget scapegoat that’s badly out of tune with the real world of education and the future of the state’s children.”
Then again, as Rich Steele notes, paying the school superintendent who authorized the $47,000 piano a quarter of a million dollars a year salary is certainly up for debate.
Hey it was good enough of a story to make today’s edition of USA TODAY—their state-by-state column…….:)
Oh, it’s a good story alright…
There are a lot of good stories around and politics being what it is, it’s not that hard to make a stink out of something that a bit more thought and research reveals to be really no big deal…
Other than a sexy story with a very limited shelf life
I agreed partially until the line “It’s part of an anti-intellectual movement causing pressure throughout the ranks of education.”
That’s oversimplifying their view. Run away spending is a serious problem and NEVER does the Star chide school districts or governments for waste.
If the Star played more than one constant note, I’d take their viewpoint a little more seriously. As it is, of course they disagree with the criticism. They view their opponents as anti-intellectual.
Well said, One Guy…
Unfortunately in this case making a scapegoat out of this piano deal is a sucker play for the knee jerk crowd
The refurbished instrument would most likely be better quality and better sound. Wood in an instrument needs aging. A 1930s Martin D28 will have better sound than a new Martin D28. The one caveat is no two instruments ever sound the same even if made from the same wood on the same day.
Now shipping said refurbished instrument might cost more than the purchase price.
Americans think when they identify a problem it is the same as solving it.
How about we go back to teaching a basic liberal arts education rather than Teach The Test or Teach The Ideology?
Nothing wrong with teaching basic liberal arts, Orph…
But it’s nice to have specialty schools too.
Just like certain universities are known for their specific attributes.
You know, like UMKC is for its business school
Just to help this ol’ white guy out, Hearne, what do you consider a liberal arts education?
Jeez Orph, put me on the spot why don;’t you…
How about this a mix of literature, language, art history, music, philosophy, history, math and science.
That do ya?
I think the young woman who made my double espresso today has one of those Liberal Arts degrees. We need more entrepreneurs and nail drivers, not more bearded hipsters majoring in Sylvia Plath or Afrocentric Music in the 21st century. We’re all stocked up on baristas and drive thru window attendants, smelling of french fries and failure. I could be wrong, but I think the “big stink” over a 50k piano isnt so much political as it’s a 50k piano. For a working class person, dropping that much cheddar on a piano for some kid to get chicken nugget grease all over, runs contrary to good ol Midwestern common sense. I tend to agree. What do I know, maybe the next Rachmaninov will come from KCK.
Liberal Arts Education isn’t our Liberal Arts Education of today.
Classic literature, science, music, art, language (Greek, Latin, German, French) and math.
An education which teaches you to think rather than take tests and regurgitate trivia. To teach a person how to learn rather than what to learn.
Mark, I posed the question when Hearne said we needed specialty schools. Which we do since music is no longer a regular part of learning. Liberal as in worthy of a free man.
Hearne, I’m all for having those “specialty schools” once we get the regular schools working.
I’ll let HL Mencken have the last word.
“The most erroneous assumption is to the effect that the aim of public education is to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence, and so make them fit to discharge the duties of citizenship in an enlightened and independent manner. Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States, whatever the pretensions of politicians, pedagogues and other such mountebanks, and that is its aim everywhere else.”
Mark and Orphan turn on it, get their legs into it and crush it clear over the monuments.
Your last point being the golden one, Mark…
We don’t live in a world where only the Billy Joels and Elton Johns matter.
We live in a world where every kid with hopes of being a BJ or an EJ is encouraged and given that opportunity.
I could be wrong, but me and you never got to be president (yet). But our teachers inspired us with the idea that we might.
And so we went on to other greatness, didn’t we?
Hey, baristas are people too.
They deserve the right to be excellent in their field, even if a couple of anonymous blowhards think they’re losers
I wish I knew what you were talking about, I have bought 10 KC stars in the last year. All the same day to use to start fires in my wood stove. I guess I may want to read one the days I buy them for burning?
Definitely, Jess…
Please do!