Budget Cuts Strike Sour Note for Music Educators

By Jeff Archer

In recent years, supporters of the music program in Roselle (Ill.) School District No. 12 have gotten used to disappointment.

Since 1994, the local band boosters have rallied behind four separate referendums for property-tax increases in their 725-student, K-8 district. Voters shot them down each time.

But when they lost the battle again last month, the defeat was especially agonizing. Without the proposed tax hike--50 cents per $100 of assessed property value--students in the Chicago suburb will have to pay about $30 a month...