I've never really had to work "for" a music school for school-age (and adult amateur) students before. My wife and I have always had a direct relationship with the students with no middle-men... but since returning back to Australia, my wife and I have worked for a few of these music schools due to our lack of sureness about building out a private teaching studio in a short time frame. However, as it turns out, we have quite large demand as teachers/lecturers and it seems like we shouldn't have worried so much about that!
However, our first ever exposure to the "music education" industry has left quite a bad impression in our minds... and it seems like parents who use the services of music education "schools" are being taken for a ride! This seems to also apply across the entire board of "education services" which feed into parents opting for a quick and easy solution to finding teachers and tutors.... leading them to pay way too much for way too little.
So, from the teacher's perspective... music schools often take a huge cut (50 percent cut is often being generous...) of the fees paid by parents. In exchange, they handle the studio costs, invoicing, and other administrative chores... but quite honestly, most of them "handle" them pretty badly! Still, it is the reason for the huge cut... but most teachers would be better off just dealing with that end of things... charging students a bit less, and then taking much much more income home!
More problematic is that most of the teachers have to sign "anti-theft" clauses in their contracts... which prohibits them from taking students from the studio for a period of two years! So, I'm suspecting that this is an industry standard sort of thing... from some OTHER industry. And it sort of makes sense on the surface level... as there will be those with ill-intent that deliberately use a music school to build a teaching studio and then just LEAVE with the students. However, expecting bad intent and binding people straight off is pretty poor... I'm not really keen on the idea that we just hold guns to each other's heads is a bad way to ensure good intent. Sadly... perhaps that is what humans do.
What seems to happen in practice is that younger or/and less experienced teachers take on more hours at music schools (incredibly low rate of pay) which means that they are unable to build up a private studio with better conditions... and then are locked-in to teaching for a studio as they can't "escape" without threat of the penalty in the contract. However... after talking around, it appears that this sort of clause is more a scare option rather than an enforceable thing in a court of law. Still... it would be a brave person who would try be the test dummy... Thankfully, we are established enough to just leave the schools... albeit with a great dose of guilt for the students that we are forced to leave behind... and that the music schools will just redistribute with little to no thought about the match ups with the teachers (and don't say that it is just money that drives the schools... they take REALLY big offense.... apparently, they think it is about the education despite the fact that they talk money all the time and know nothing about the students!).
So... how does this impact the "customer" (sorry, I call them parents and students... but the schools who care about the education aspect call them customers... maybe clients... Seriously, the MBA business-type people have a lot of responsibility for the breakdown of society..). Well... it means that their kids are getting teaching from teachers who (in general...) are locked-in, less experienced, and under-paid whilst paying quite high tuition fees. Meanwhile, the lessons are often scheduled like a factory floor... all around, it is an atmosphere of profit-maximisation... which is what the schools DO need to do to survive... but lets be honest, it is NOT the ideal atmosphere for REAL education.
Sadly, this concept of "education" has infected all areas of teaching... including normal schools... and parents have been conditioned to think that it is perfectly normal. Learning takes time, and it is not everything SHOULD be a free-market and profit-driven venture... The American Chicago School of economic thought (the dominant one for free-world economies) often cherry-picks quotes from Adam Smith and other theorists. Economics has long been an exercise in story-telling dressed up in pseudo-analysis.. but sadly, the story-telling took hold... and now we have slightly messed-up economies that benefit the few.
Anyway, this got a little bit off-topic... music schools, an easy way out for teachers/students/parents.. but in the end, their incentives are NOT aligned with education, and that means that at least of the music schools are pushing policies and incentives that are best described as unproductive... and quite possibly, dodgy.
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