My Nonprofit Reviews
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Review for Education Through Music, Inc., New York, NY, USA
This winter the opportunity arose to visit Education Through Music's beautiful suite of offices in midtown Manhattan, directly above Grand Central Station. If only New York City's school children could learn in an environment as lovely as the one occupied by yet another "non-profit."
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Review for Education Through Music, Inc., New York, NY, USA
Education Through Music "provides" music teachers at a school my child attends in the Bronx. At first, I thought it would be a wonderful program and was excited about opportunities afforded to my child. However, as more details about their teachers and monetary arrangements emerged, I became disillusioned. Education Through Music hires unqualified "teachers." Most are post graduates with a degree in music performance and absolutely no experience in teaching. Education Through Music, on average, fires/loses approximately 75% of their teaching staff every year, which is not the consistency we need when dealing with children. As well, although they claim to be a non-profit who PROVIDES for underprivileged schools, the public school my child attends paid $18,000 to Education Through Music this year to receive the services of teacher that came twice a week. 40 weeks, 2 times per week = 80 days. Divide that by $18,000 and that comes to $225 per day that a DISADVANTAGED PUBLIC SCHOOL is paying ETM for their services. This is not non-profit. It is robbery.
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nyc public school
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investigate them for fraud
I’m sorry you have not been pleased with the quality of the program at your child’s school. Each of our partner schools does pay for a portion of the program, and ETM raises money to fund the rest. Some schools pay a significant portion, and that is in fact part of our long-term goal for schools to run their own music education programs. We believe music education should be part of every school’s budget, so we work with principals to help them build costs into their budgets over time. We negotiate fees each year with each principal, and we ask schools to increase their financial commitment as time goes on. Many of our partner schools have in fact hired certified music teachers to their own staff after beginning to partner with ETM, and we are excited when this happens, as it makes music a more permanent part of the school. We have been strengthening our efforts to hire more teachers with education backgrounds. The only way we will be able to help each school move down a path of hiring teachers is if we can provide them with strong candidates, and that is something we are working on. As of the fall of 2010, over half of our music teachers have a degree in music education and/or are certified music teachers, and still more are pursuing certification or additional degrees. Our audited financial statements and annual filings with the IRS are publicly available. Please contact me if you would like additional information about the budget for the program at your school. Katherine Damkohler Executive Director Education Through Music, Inc. 212-972-4788 kdamkohler@ETMonline.org
