Yes, music definitely should at least be an elective class. That allows it to be more complex than a compulsory subject which has to cater to all the students who have no real interest. I'm not sure how High School is run in America, but in Aus we pick electives in our third year of high school.
Music was a standard class for my first two years of high school, and I loved the classes but mainly because it involved grabbing guitars and lounging around with friends in a park, it was 80% practical and was basically accepted as something approaching a free period. When exam time came around I would become mildly proficient at some song on piano, and maybe I could have been pretty decent if I had an ounce of motivation in my body but whatever, quite a few people from my class stuck with it and chose the elective, and after four more years they were fairly skilled musicians.
What you described sounded much more theory based and I'm pretty sure I would have hated it and not learned a thing. Are you assuming that most public US schools couldn't afford instruments?
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