As "Music Educators Journal" celebrates its centennial, it is appropriate to look back over the past century to see how advocacy in music education has evolved. Of the more than 200 submitted articles on advocacy, four main themes emerged: music education in community, the relevancy of music education, the value of music education, and…

This article seeks to reignite debate about the purpose of a university music education. Taking inspiration from Randall Thompson's 1935 investigation of the role of music preparation in U.S. colleges and universities, an analogous call is made for a less vocational approach to the study of music. The author claims that the music education…

This article views "Music Educators Journal" ("MEJ") and the hundred years of music education it has served through the lenses of the depth and breadth of music education at the present point in the profession's history. "MEJ" has been an important component in our depth of understanding of the nature and values…

Race to the Top is the latest in a line of federal programs reshaping K-12 education. This article traces the history and goals of Race to the Top, with particular attention paid to the means by which practicing classroom teachers are evaluated and held accountable for student learning as measured by standardized tests. Implications for music…

This address by Lilla Belle Pitts was prepared for a joint symposium session of the convention of the California-Western School Music Conference and the California Secondary School Principals, held in San Francisco, March 1937. The symposium theme was "Music Education in the Secondary Schools." Pitts said in this address that it was…

Professional discussion of curricular change and innovation is essential for maintaining and increasing the positive effects that music education can have on schoolchildren. Much recent discourse about curricular change has focused on critiques of the traditional large-ensemble model of music education, technological innovation applied to teaching…

In music education, current attention to student-centered approaches for learning affects our understanding of student assessment. This view to curriculum reform requires new perspectives for assessment. There is a need to move beyond the summative use of assessment to assign grades to examining the roles of assessment in supporting and enhancing…

This article presents Scott Shuler's "Five Guiding Principles for Music Education": (1) An education in "all" the arts is important for "all" students; (2) Independence--music literacy in the broadest sense--is necessary to lead a life enriched by music; (3) Independent music literacy can be defined as the ability to carry out the three artistic…

Knowledge about music advocacy strategies has long been promoted as important for music educators, not only for the benefit of their individual programs but also for the specific benefit of music students and the general public. This article suggests an approach to advocacy grounded in the teacher's professional beliefs, phrased in terms…

Thinking hopefully about the problems and possibilities of school music education, particularly in the United States, the author suggests a number of ways in which music educators might think and act more broadly, inclusively, humanely, and musically toward transforming their thought and practice. Rather than espousing change for change's sake, or…

This article discusses the author's reflections about three aspects of his MENC-based writings that represent the major issues and dilemmas addressed in articles and books outside MENC. Here, the author focuses on the need for performance teaching in schools to be guided by philosophy and for philosophy to be applied to forging better practices.…

Twelve women have led MENC: The National Association for Music Education, including current president Lynn Brinckmeyer--six of them in the first fifty years of MENC's history. Frances Elliott Clark, known as the "Mother of the Conference," oversaw the founding of the Music Supervisors' National Conference (MSNC) in 1907 at a gathering in Keokuk,…

Music teachers, like their colleagues in other fields, are living through a paradoxical time in schools. Currents of change in education and society seem to pull teachers in contradictory directions. Nowhere is this flux more apparent than in curriculum. While teachers are called upon to differentiate teaching approaches to meet the diverse needs…

Most music teachers today are accustomed to teaching and learning practices that have undergone little change throughout many decades. Face-to-face instruction in music education has been the norm at all levels, although elements of technology and distance learning have filtered into their personal and professional lives, often in small and…

Focuses on the history of music education since the 1950s to present day. Examines the education reform and the changes in music education. Addresses how changes in society affected music education over the years. Discusses why music education is still successful and thriving. (CMK)