By Tom Mulhern
In 1968, when Jack Martens started as a music instructor at San Francisco’s Benjamin Franklin Middle School, he never dreamed how resourceful he’d have to be. He was assigned to a school that was "the worst in the district. Nothing was expected to come out of that place." Each day Martens instructs 225 students–40% of the school’s total enrollment. In 1996, after 28 years of hard work and dedication, Jack was awarded NARAS’ local Mr. Holland Award. Here’s a brief look at what Jack’s done to make sure that kids–some from the poorest part of the city–would get a good music education.
Martens began writing grant proposals in the early 1980s. Knowing that he couldn’t get funding to give his students individual lessons, he asked for help establishing quartets and quintets. He got the grant money, and was able to give the players the attention they needed.
In the inner city, where kids can’t afford to rent an instrument, let alone buy one, it’s important to keep the aschool instruments working. So with a grant of $5,000 a year, Jack repaired old and damaged instruments. "They’re old clunkers, but they’re great as rehearsal horns at home and so forth." After four years, that grant dried up and it looked as if the music program would fall victim to big budgetary cutbacks. Jack became more resourceful and hustled even harder to keep the music going. He found a local businessman who cared and subsequently wrote a check for $7,500 to help Jack’s program–and he’s come through each year since by raising $7,500 again and again.
Jack sees opportunity to publicize his students and the music program everywhere, saying, "We have a donor thank-you concert for those who contribute, we have letters that go out soliciting donations and telling people that if they become a member of the band club that they get invited to a donor thank-you concert. People respond to that."
"By hook or crook, we get as much as we can through the schools, and they know I’m out hustling–like getting $1,000 a year recycling aluminum cans with the kids," Martens says.
Jack knows the power of motivating the community. "When the to take out the elementary music program in our district was threatened, we got wind a week before our all-city concert. During that week I wrote up a petition, and we passed those petitions down the rows during the concert intermission. Several parents took those petitions around their neighborhoods and to their businesses, and at the end of a week we had over 4,000 signatures. We presented that stack of petitions to the school board. They figured if we had gotten that many signatures in only a week, that people were interested in preserving the music program."
Jack Martens believes that the most powerful spokesperson for music education in the schools is quality programs. He’s done his best over three decades to make sure his kids get the best program they can.