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…

Music educators in the United States and those who support them currently wrestle with the fact that students from low-income communities and homes are underrepresented across the country's music programs. Music education classes, particularly at the secondary level, do not represent the broader population enrolled in U.S. public schools. In…

Classroom and arts educators frequently collaborate in the pursuit of common educational goals. Examples of sophisticated interdisciplinary teaching can be found in nearly every classroom, as when teachers use music to provide context for social movements, dancers to demonstrate various types of movement, or paintings to illustrate proportion.…

A major challenge currently facing Pennsylvania music educators (and many music educators across the country) is change to the evaluation process of teachers in Non-Tested Grades and Subjects (NTGS). The law directing this change is known as Act 82 and comes from the Pennsylvania legislature, authorized through House Bill 1901. The Pennsylvania…

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…

Although the influence of the school music teacher in a student's decision to pursue an undergraduate music education degree is well documented, little is known about the contribution that state music education associations (MEAs) may make toward a student's decision to major in a music-related field. Data do suggest that students'…

Melissa Lesniak, the executive director of the Greater Miami Youth Symphony, discusses how much she enjoyed reading the responses to her "El Sistema" article and appreciates the opportunity for healthy dialogue and debate. In response, she states that there are many common goals and objectives across all music education programs that can…

Music teachers are often the Pied Pipers of their schools, attracting the interest of students by the nature of the subject they teach. Their students who excel are often the best and brightest, since music reading and music production demand higher-level thinking skills, motor ability, and in the case of ensemble performance, social skills. As…

A number of scholars have investigated the roots of the "Arirang," although the origins are debated. Most agree that the original form of the song "Arirang" was first found upstream from Seoul along the Han River. The lyrics told the story of a woman waiting for her lover on the bank of the river. The term "Arirang"…

The digital or information age promotes a liberal, more empowering way of learning and interacting or as Bob Stein, founder of the Voyager Company and the Institute for the Future of the Book, says, "If the printing press empowered the individual, the digital world empowers collaboration." Cynthia Johnston Turner, director of wind…

This article provides guidance for music teachers who want to introduce Korean folk music to their students. It introduces "Arirang"--both a specific folk song and a category--and describes three different versions: the "Miryang Arirang," the "Jindo Arirang," and the "Gyeonggi Arirang." The…

Choral directors will always be assessed by the quality of their choral performances. The concepts presented in this article are designed to strengthen and improve choral performance. If choral directors can design an individualized assessment plan and implement some of these ideas during each grading period, grades will be more equitably…

The revised Core Arts Standards offer music educators the chance to examine the contradictions that currently permeate the arts advocacy discourse. This article examines the emphasis on 21st-century workplace skills in claims made by arts advocacy proponents. An alternative approach focuses instead on lifelong learning in the arts and the array of…

Metacognition is a type of thinking in which learners think about their own cognitive processes. Because it transcends disciplines and grade levels, metacognition is useful in many educational settings and can be transferred from the music classroom to other subject areas. Music educators can promote metacognition by designing and implementing…

This article focuses on the music education and enculturation of Motown musicians who grew up in greater Detroit. The early musical lives of Motown musicians are described--in the home environment, in schools and in black urban neighborhoods. Schools are shown to be spaces of musical nurturance, both in the context of the formal curriculum and in…