The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which general music teachers teach songs of the American children's folk heritage. It appears that teachers are failing to do this, less because of any deliberate intent than for very complex reasons, such as different priorities that go beyond art and music, lack of curricular direction, not having these songs in their textbooks, and not knowing these songs themselves. The bottom line is that not enough teachers or students know the songs of their own American heritage. The methodology of the study involved three phases. The first phase consisted of selecting the song list that would be foundational to the study. Music textbooks and song books from the 1700s to 1950 were used to create the initial song list. People over the age of 62 who had grown up in America were asked to transform that list into one that truly represented songs of the American children's folk heritage. They selected only the songs they had learned as children in America. The second phase involved condensing the initial list. Elementary music specialists rated the songs, creating a more manageable representative list of songs of the American children's folk heritage. The third phase consisted of a national song assessment, which was used to achieve the purpose of this study. General music teachers in each of the fifty states assessed the extent to which their students could sing particular songs of the American children's folk heritage from memory.