Should ensembles be extra-curricular?

I applied for a job in Edinburgh. I don't think they'll even interview me, I'm sure there's a hundred qualified music teachers who wouldn't need a work visa. But in researching this particular school, I learned some things about the UK school system (and if I'm totally off in what I found, will Mark Skaba please correct me?):

1) All students in public or private schools are required to take exit exams (if you read Harry Potter, think OWLs and NEWTs---they're actually called GCSEs). There is a GCSE exam in music. This means that even low performing schools have to at least give their students access to music through the high school level. However, this does not refer to offering ensembles. See point 2.

2) Music is generally offered as an academic course---like it is in college here. Ensembles are considered "extra curricular" and are offered outside the school day. Almost exactly like we do for physical education here (you learn about the sport and basics of how to play in PE, but to actually play the sport, you join the after school team). Some schools structure it differently

This made me wonder: If NCLB says music (or social studies, art, and foreign language)are "core subjects" necessary for a well-rounded student, why are only three subjects tested? Should we test all subjects? And if so, would it make more sense to move music to a general study subject and make ensembles extra-curricular? In all the budget cuts, secondary music teachers here have scrambled to find a way to save their programs. Twenty years ago, this meant doing research that found music to be really valuable to brain development, teaching responsibility, keeping high-risk kids interested in school....blah blah blah.....that's not enough anymore. We're still getting cut.

How can we say music is important but still only teach 10% of the school population---since our system is structured around ensembles? How can you justify employing that many people who teach so few kids? The answer is: You can't. Thus we see music getting shuffled out of schedules, kids being taken out for remedial reading, since that IS tested. No one cares if music is good for lengthening attention span when the only group you spend extra time with is your jazz band or chamber choir of 15 students. And of course, there are teachers who have huge programs with several hundred students involved, which is great. But even those programs cap out between half or a little over half the total school population. At most. What about the other half? Do they not deserve music? Is it not important for them? Or is that something we tell administrators to justify our existence? If so, less and less of them are buying it.

Some places require students take music for at least 1/2 a year, or a year to graduate from high school. That's great, it's a start, but it's not enough. How much benefit does a kid really get from 1 year of piano? A year of beginning band in 9th grade? Especially if there's no continuity (no feeder program, no advanced class, no options after that except ensembles they may not be able/want to do)? What about the kid who really likes music, has a great ear, but NO interest in performing? How many jobs can you think of where a student like that could make a living in the music industry? Fixing instruments? Editing sheet music? Sound technician? The list goes on and on, yet we cling to this paradigm of training performers. Because that's what we are. Is performing important? Sure. It's a performance art. But the research doesn't say that performing is the part that benefits students. It certainly brings all the skills together in a real meaningful way, but that's not where the learning takes place. That usually happens in class. During the instruction and work time.

I think if we as a subject are to survive in this environment we really need to take a good hard look at what we do and why. And the solution needs to be centered around what's good for kids, what they actually need to learn, not what's good for our egos and the PR of the school and district.