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Now that CM is over (at least for my kids), I can start contemplating about next year's test.

What really bothered me was, in the last couple of months, how many parents came asking "Can my kid skip a level next year?"

Really?! You've got to be kidding me.

This past CM, three of my students skipped a level, and they all passed (one barely passed, by the skin of her teeth). A year ago, another student skipped two levels and passed. I didn't exactly advertise this fact to everybody; in fact, I try to hide that fact because I wasn't sure they'd all pass. I doubt the parents of these students talk to each other--they barely know each other to begin with. And I definitely would NOT recommend skipping levels for kids who BARELY passed the previous level.

The first question that came to my mind when I heard the question was: "Who told you your kid can skip levels?" It definitely didn't come from me. What's funny is that the parents who asked this question have the most inflated sense of their kid's piano skills.

What would possess parents to want their kids to skip a CM level? What good could possibly come out of this?

There is a local "music school" that openly brags about their students' CM achievements, and advertise heavily about skipping levels and "saving money." Could this be the source of gossip among parents?

More than likely word gets around somehow, and this music school's advertisements have probably reached their ears. Save money by skipping levels! What a great idea! I'd hate to have to pay extra when my child could skip.

It's a pain, but why not use this to your advantage? Tell the parents that you enter children in at the level they are capable of doing. Perhaps if their child would practice a bit more/consistently/what I tell them to practice they could get to the level of X in time. See what happens, you might be surprised

Skipping levels isn't unique to CM. In the Piano Guild Auditions, it's likely, and highly probably, that students will advance more than one level each year during their early studies. Seldom happens when they advance to the High School level, however. Auditions are super-refined; there are 6 elementary levels and 6 intermediate levels, but only 4 high school levels and 4 college levels.

Several colleagues and I have had the (dis)pleasure of getting transfer students who have been skipped ahead by their previous teachers, usually ones at those "music schools." It's not fun. I heard one of my friend's student, a third grader, playing "level 6" music. The girl obviously worked diligently to get the notes under her fingers, but there was no musical understanding and zero expression.

I asked my friend, why not sit the student out a year or two? She told me the girl has already "passed" level 5, two years ago, in first grade! And the parents took the girl to study with her because the previous teacher can't handle it anymore.

This whole "levels" and testing thing has become a race. I think it's time that I put my foot down and say no to skipping. It's also funny that the people who ask to skip levels are the parents of the most untalented, unmusical, and lazy students.

I am not familiar with how Guild "levels" the various grades. But the CM levels were meant to match the school's grade levels, with kids starting in 2nd grade (with CM Prep level) and finishing as seniors in high school (with CM Advanced level). Of course, with all the pressure from SAT prep and AP classes in 11th and 12th grades, things get bumped down so that kids race through CM levels and finish by 10th grade at the latest. In fact, there's this horrible trend to get everything in by 8th grade so the kid can quit piano and take SAT prep classes in 9th and 10th grades.

The newer wave of Asian immigrants is really guilty of doing just that. The parents get all sorts of misinformation from the local Asian media, websites of unscrupulous "music schools," and other equally-misinformed parents, so that half-truths and lies get spread around like the flu.

I feel bad for myself and my conscientious colleagues who are stuck in the middle of this dilemma. If you tell the parents the truth, they'll just take their kid to somebody who will push them to finish CM by 8th grade.

It's true; I don't think the MTAC state board knows how bad it is in some communities. Perhaps they could benefit from an explanation as clearly as you have here given.

Guild is essentially the opposite approach. They have advancement levels, roughly equally spaced, from nearly raw beginner to extremely advanced. Students are evaluated where they are at, not by school grade level. That said, the breakdown for the elementary levels matches fairly closely where the more "average" student would be, if they began in grade one and continue in the elementary level at grade six. Most students these days seem to be from homes where high expectations and abilities exist, so typically, they reach the intermediate level by school grade five. Some earlier and some later.

And, of course, there is no competition element in Guild auditions. Unlike MTNA adjudications, students do not advance from local to district to state to national. You do your audition, get graded, and that's that.

I think the members of CM Council are clearly aware of what's going on. They just can't do anything about it.

It goes back to the parents' expectations and lack of understanding of what truly constitutes "passing" a level. I've helped many students to pass the Advanced level of CM. Out of this group, I'd say half are truly "level 10" and beyond. The other half were assigned the easiest, shortest pieces allowed, crammed for their theory test two weeks before the exam, and prayed that they got an easy evaluator who passed everybody.

Heck, just this morning my friend's niece took her Advanced Level CM test, and her teacher didn't even teach her theory! Guess who tutored her theory??? Kids like this are, at best, playing at level 6. They were just passed along, year after year, in hopes that they don't quit lessons.

You might think Panel/YAG (post level 10) solves everything. It doesn't. Most Asian parents don't even know what Panel/YAG is, or they think it's something so difficult and unobtainable, or "it's only for kids who want to be music majors in college."

This all sounds insane to me. I don't have anything to do with ratings now, but year after year I did when I taught brass. What we did here is much closer to what John described. People did not compete against each other. They were simply rated, and although there were incompetent judges who gave totally useless and WRONG evaluations, there were also some who were superb.

My "thing" was to always go for quality. For instance, solos were graded from grade 1 to grade 7. I would often pick a solo with a lower "grade", something that was not rated as difficult but that contained very challenging musical problems. Theoretically students would be graded more severely if they played "easier" music, but I found that generally judges were smarter than the people who rated the music and rewarded my students very highly when they played something supposedly more simple with excellent tone, fine phrasing and a more mature sounding interpretation.

Well, CM is basically that. The "competition" nowadays is how quickly kids can breeze through the levels.

I'm still trying to put myself in these delusional parents' shoes. It is true that they know nothing about music, and they think that hard work will trump a complete lack of talent. It also fascinates me that the same parents who ask to have their kids skip levels are also the ones who take two weeks off piano lessons after CM and 10 weeks off during the summer.

ANZ:
I am very familiar with the parents you are describing. Basically the parents in my studio self-dividing themselves to "tiger-mom" and "non-tiger-mom". No, I never label them, they are self-labeled. It is always pleasure to work with non-tiger-mom, they said they want their children to love music, play piano for life-time, they want their children to have "childhood" instead of overwhelmed with things that they should know and standard test. This group of parents will still let their children take CM test but they always ask me to suggest a level and I always suggest one level below the students' ability because I believe in quality.

At the other side, here comes the "tiger-mom" that think their children can do anything as long as they put in effort. One of them request to skip three levels from Level 5 to Level 8 right away. Last year this excellent boy had Branch Honor for Level 5, but this year this poor boy barely pass Level 8 with everything "Average" and one "Poor" in his score. His theory was in 80%, for me, it is not good enough either. In fact, out of all the kids taking test, I compute their average score and send an email to all the parents, they can see exactly how their kids doing compare to other kids in my studio. This boy was the last one in my studio. Of course I label my students only with a student number, each parent know their kid's number but do not know any other kid's number. In this case, somehow the privacy is protected, and still parents know how their kids compare to the rest of the kids.

This mom was so ashamed that her kid is the last one in the studio and it is all because she is not listening to my suggestions about which level her kids should take. She finally realize after seeing the result and agree with me that she should have listen to me.

So, I am suggesting you:
1. Keep a detail record of everything about which level the students should take. For example, you can create a form that says: teacher suggesting Sally to take CM5, but parents want CM8 and have the parents sign it. In this case, you proof to them that you are professional.

2. Let's say you have 30 students take CM test this year, create a table of 30 students and delete all the names and levels. Provide parent23 that, hey, your child is #23 and that is all the information you provided to them. Later, always update the table with their progress. In this case, parents can see their own child's progress (#23), but they can also see how other students progress in your studio without telling who they are. I usually use Green to indicate good progressing, Orange for mediocre progressing and Red for no progressing in learning their material for CM test. So, if parent23 see his child is all "RED" and other students are mostly Green and Orange, then he for sure will keep bugging his son to practice more at home.

3. Set a line for all the students and tell them that they have to cross this line by this date to be enroll in the CM Level that their parents want. For example, I set a standard of by September of each year, they have to be in their current level of theory book for me to register them in the level that they want. This boy that skip from Level 5 to 8 has to complete theory book 6, 7 and 8 before he take the test. So, March 2012 he started with Book 6, September 2012 he has to be at least started Level 8 book so that I register him as Level 8 in November 2012. Let's say by September 2012 he is in Level 7 book, then I will register him as Level 7 regardless what his mom tell me to do because we have this agreement of all three parties (teacher, parents, student) that this is the standard.

4. Never allowed your students to skip effort. Yes they can skip level, but they cannot skip effort. I always give them a list of assignment and books that they need to complete before taking test, I tell them, yes, if you want to skip level, you have to proof to me that you are good enough to skip level.

5. Always give out warning to parents up front and honest. I am fully aware of the result of skipping too many levels and the result of parents not listen to my suggestion. This year, actually another parent are requesting the same thing again. Her boy just finish Level 5 and now she is requesting Level 8. (not the same boy) I told her the result of the previous boy that doing the same thing and I also told her that her son will be barely pass and the result is not flying color. Guess what she said: I just want my son to pass, as long as he pass, I don't care if he pass with a letter "C" or "D", I just want him to pass Level 8. If this is the case, make a good record of what she said so that when the result is out, she won't come back to haunt you. My responds to her would be: "Okay, I am glad that you are aware of the consequences of skipping too many level and you still want to do it. Fine with me, I will do my best to help you and your son to achieve whatever your musical/ piano goal is, that is why I am here and that is why you hire me."

I really hope this help.

Example of table I mention in #2
Table of progress of EZPiano for CM2014

Yes, this happens where I live, too: "trend to get everything done in piano by the end of 8th grade...." before high school and AP, IB, and other academic programs. Are the kids who are rushing to complete CM all the better for it or do they end up with burn out? Does this skipping and rushing make them better musicians?

If they finish everything by 8th grade, I think college admission will not look at the certificate at all. College admission only look what you have done in your high-school year (grade 9, 10, 11 and 12). Please correct me if I am wrong.

I never really had this problem until this year. The great majority of the parents I work for were great.

But for some reason this year the parents are just unreasonable. They stop monitoring their kids' practice at home. They start making one excuse after another regarding the lack of practice time. I literally sat students out of recitals because they were completely unprepared, and it would a complete waste of everybody's time to listen to their plowing through their unprepared pieces.

I'm going to try the honest approach, again, in the next few weeks. Let me try to talk some sense into these delusional parents.

If I were you, I wouldn't make a blanket statement like that to parents. Some colleges won't look at anything lower than 10th grade (because in some parts of the country, "high school" is still defined as 10th, 11th, and 12th). I'm guessing some colleges will take into account the entire student, not just what they've accomplished in the last two years.

Either what I heard 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th grade, or what you heard 10th, 11th, 12th grade, 8th grade is not on the list, what is a hurry to finish everything by 8th grade?

I think that depends on the student. Some students truly can handle the extra work and/or they were already great musicians who just happened to take a lower level in previous years. But it's those below-average kids (who shouldn't be skipping levels to begin with!) that I'm talking about.


Absolutely not!

Do their parents believe it makes the children grow up to be more successful and more decent human beings?

I do not know. From my understanding, these two groups of parents (tiger-mom and non-tiger-mom) has different parenting philosophies. I would stay away from having opinions on parents about how to do their parenting, I think it is very personal issues. I can only feel empathy for the kids.