The Cost of Not Playing: How Music Participation Shapes the Financial Health of a School District

Jeremy Earnhart, Ed.D.

For as long as anyone can remember, secondary music programs—especially band—have been labeled expensive.

Instruments cost money. Uniforms cost money. Transportation to performances and festivals costs money. On the surface, when budgets tighten, music looks like an obvious place to cut.

But when you examine how graduation credits, staffing formulas, and master schedules actually work inside secondary schools, a counterintuitive truth emerges:

Large ensemble music programs are not a cost center.

They are among the only courses in a high school that save districts money when participation grows—and cost districts money when participation shrinks.

This phenomenon was first articulated clearly by John Benham (2011) as “reverse economics.” His core finding was simple and profound: any circumstance that prevents a student from participating in band, choir, or orchestra creates a negative cost implication for the district.

In other words, the economics most people assume are true are, in fact, upside down.

The Hidden Cost in Most Districts

When students enter high school without prior participation in a music ensemble, they must still satisfy Fine Arts graduation requirements.

In many districts, the default solution is Art I.

Structurally, that means:

For every 100 freshmen who arrive not enrolled in band, orchestra, or choir, the master schedule must typically absorb:

• 3–4 additional Art I sections

• Approximately 1.0 FTE (Full Time Equivalent or One Staffing Unit/Full Person)

• Roughly $75,000 in recurring annual salary and benefits

This cost appears immediately in 9th grade. It is predictable, structural, and embedded in staffing formulas and scheduling software.

And because students from low-income families and first-generation households are the least likely to have had access to instrumental or choral music in grades 6–8, they are disproportionately represented among those generating these costs. This pattern is structural, not accidental—and it is reversible. See Irving ISD, Arlington ISD: Equal Access & Enhanced Economics.

The Reverse Effect: How Music Participation Lowers Costs

Students who enter 9th grade already enrolled in band, orchestra, or choir satisfy their Fine Arts graduation requirement within an existing course.

No new section.

No new staffing line.

No new FTE.

In most states, physical education at the high school level is governed and scheduled as part of the graduation framework. In systems where marching band satisfies the Physical Education credit, participation through marching band creates an additional layer of savings.

In districts where marching band satisfies the Physical Education requirement, color guard participation functions as a force multiplier. Students who join color guard—even without prior enrollment in band, choir, or orchestra—can earn both a Fine Arts credit and a Physical Education credit through a single course. This expands graduation credit efficiency and enrollment capacity without introducing additional staffing demand.

One course.

Two graduation credits.

Zero additional staffing.

This eliminates the need for:

• Extra Art I sections

• PE overflow sections

• Additional FTE pressure in both departments

The result is not philosophical. It is mathematical.

The Math (Conservative and Clarified)

In states without PE credit:

• Net annual impact (conservative): ≈ $150,000 per 100 students

– ≈ $75,000 in immediate Art I staffing in 9th grade

– ≈ $75,000 in distributed elective staffing pressure across grades 10–12 when students who never enter large ensemble music fill lower student-teacher ratio courses

In states where marching band earns PE credit:

• Net annual impact: ≈ $225,000 per 100 students

– ≈ $75,000 in Art I staffing

– ≈ $75,000 in PE staffing

– ≈ $75,000 in downstream elective staffing pressure in grades 10–12

This downstream cost rarely appears as a single position. Instead, it shows up as fractional staffing additions spread across departments—additions that quietly become structurally permanent over time.

Either way, the savings from robust music participation are substantial, recurring, and system-generated—not dependent on grants, fundraising, or short-term fixes.

Simply put, Secondary Music—and notably Marching Band—offers the:

Best Bang for your Educational Buck.

The Middle School Multiplier

These economics do not begin in 9th grade.

They begin in 6th grade.

Middle school music programs serve as enrollment engines for large-ensemble courses that can absorb significant numbers of students without triggering additional staffing. A music director teaching 60 students costs the same as one teaching 120.

Students not enrolled in music ensembles quickly generate FTE pressure in electives due to lower student–teacher ratios—with real financial consequences.

This raises a critical systems question every district should ask:

Are you maximizing the return on the music FTE you already employ—or are you unintentionally creating staffing demand across other departments?

Many districts require or strongly support 6th-grade music because they’ve recognized—implicitly or explicitly—that 5th-grade recruitment determines staffing realities for the next seven years of that grade-level cohort. See: The Case for Requiring Music in 6th Grade — Or the Beginning Year.

The Real Cost Is Actually Higher

The figures above are intentionally conservative.

They account only for:

• Art I

• Physical Education

• A single year of impact

They do not include:

• Compounding staffing pressure across multiple cohorts

• Increased elective inefficiency in grades 10–12

• The sunk cost of music staff already employed but under-utilized

Meanwhile, large ensemble programs—particularly band—can grow significantly without additional staffing.

As Anthony Gibson, retired Fine Arts Director of Allen ISD (TX), put it succinctly:

“We can stack them high and deep.”

That statement is not about pedagogy.

It is a description of structural efficiency.

Music as Schedule Infrastructure

Beyond staffing costs, secondary music programs serve another often invisible function:

Secondary music programs are frequently referred to by administrators, when used effectively, as "Schedule Balancers." They stabilize the master schedule.

Large ensemble courses absorb complexity. Without them, students scatter across small electives that force schedulers to create:

• Singleton sections

• Low-enrollment courses

• Inefficient staffing patterns

Music programs function less like electives and more like infrastructure—a stabilizing force in increasingly complex secondary schedules that benefits the entire building.

Why This Has Remained Hidden

The downstream effects of enrollment patterns are fragmented across:

• Staffing formulas

• Scheduling software

• Departmental budgets

• Site-based decision making

Each of these systems plays a role in shaping secondary schools. Yet site-based decision making often works at cross-purposes with secondary music, which functions most effectively for students as a grades 6–12 “school within a school.”

Rarely does anyone connect a spike in 9th-grade Art I sections to the absence of robust music participation in 6th grade three years prior. Decisions that seem small in the moment—such as denying a middle school recruitment visit because it conflicts with a practice assessment—can quietly generate significant downstream costs for the system years later.

Those costs are rarely traced back to their origin. Instead, they are absorbed into staffing formulas, scheduling software, and departmental budgets, with no single decision ever appearing responsible.

And that is to say nothing of the students themselves—students who never had an entry point into a seven-year music experience that provides continuity, belonging, and multiple adult stakeholders who know them, support them, and grow with them from ages 11 to 18—nearly 40 percent of their lives.

But in every district where I have shown administrators this analysis, the response is remarkably consistent:

“Why has no one shown us this before?”

This data-driven analysis of the impact of secondary music expansion—and my forthcoming book—exist to answer that question.

What This Means for Your District

This analysis represents one component of a larger economic framework developed in my forthcoming book, The Cost of Not Playing: How Music Participation Shapes the Health of a School District.

If you are a superintendent, CFO, principal, board member, or music educator (or parent/taxpayer) helping build next year’s budget, this is a conversation worth having—not about what music costs, but about what the absence of music costs, and how expanding music participation can improve a district’s economic efficiency.

I work with districts to audit these dynamics locally and design sustainable secondary music systems that serve students and budgets simultaneously. If this analysis raises questions about your own staffing, scheduling, or enrollment patterns, I’m glad to talk.

—

Jeremy@SchoolMusicConsulting.com

Jeremy Earnhart, Ed.D. is a music education consultant and former district-level Fine Arts leader who works with school systems on secondary scheduling, enrollment growth, and long-term program sustainability. His work on music education systems and advocacy has appeared in peer-reviewed and invited publications, including university and professional research journals.

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References

Benham, J. L. (2011). Music advocacy. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Education.