Baltimore schools urged to expand music education for city youth
Only 10 of Baltimore’s 93 middle schools offer orchestra or band, even as City Schools budgets $100 per student for arts and expands its Fine Arts Office.
Only 10 of Baltimore City’s 93 middle schools offer orchestra or band, a stark access gap in a system that serves 76,362 students and is still being asked to meet Maryland’s fine arts requirements for every child from prekindergarten through eighth grade.
Baltimore City Public Schools has said it is trying to close that gap. In a Feb. 13, 2024 presentation to the Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners, the district said its Fine Arts Office had grown from one employee to four since the original fine arts plan launched in 2018, and that it had added 143 fine arts teachers since then. The district also pointed to a new Fine Arts 2.0 plan built around expanded curriculum, partnerships and measurable goals.
The need is visible in the numbers. City Schools lists 16,640 students in grades 6 through 8 and 21,927 in grades 9 through 12 for the 2025-26 school year. Maryland rules require local systems to provide fine arts instruction each year for students in prekindergarten through grade 8, and to offer fine arts electives in grades 9 through 12. But a requirement on paper does not guarantee a band room, an orchestra teacher or enough instruments for a full class.
The district’s FY26 operating budget, approved May 14, 2025, totals $1.9 billion and includes $100 per student in arts funding, along with expanded instrumental music leadership. That investment suggests City Schools sees arts access as part of the core school budget, not an afterthought. The question now is whether that money reaches enough schools, enough teachers and enough students to make music education routine instead of uneven.
Outside organizations have stepped in to fill some of the pressure points. BSO OrchKids provides free in-school music programming and supports Baltimore City Public Schools music teachers with sectionals and ensemble support, serving students as young as prekindergarten. The Bridges Music Program, founded in 2006 and operating independently since 2012, was created in response to major budget cuts to arts programs in city schools and now provides free instruments and twice-weekly string instruction to Baltimore children.
That long arc matters. In 2019, Arts Every Day and MECU announced a $200,000, four-year partnership to expand arts and music education in Baltimore City Public Schools, and then-Fine Arts Coordinator Chan'nel Howard said about 50% of city schools had music education at the time. Even with new staffing and budget language, the city is still deciding whether music education will be a citywide promise or a patchwork of programs that depends on outside help.
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