Who’s the best? Investigating the NAMM Foundation’s “Best Communities of Music Education” awardees

Abstract

The “Best Communities for Music Education” (BCME) award from the National Association for Music Merchants (NAMM) Foundation is intended to celebrate school districts committed to supporting music education. However, despite its over twenty-year history, little is known about the awardees themselves. The purpose of this study was to describe the characteristics of school districts that received NAMM’s BCME award in 2021 and 2022. We utilized publicly available data from NAMM and the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) to analyze demographic data of 2021 and 2022 awardees along several categories. We also gathered and analyzed BCME lists from 2005–2020 to provide an insight on the frequency of repeat awardees. Findings show that awardees primarily represent suburban communities that skew more affluent, more educated, and more white than national averages. These findings may help interrogate conceptions of quality, highlight issues of inequity among school districts, and bring insight into policy tools underpinning public music education advocacy efforts.

Keywords:

• Music education advocacy
• music awards
• music quality
• school district demographics

Beginning with the work of Lowell Mason in the nineteenth century, music education in public classrooms has been bolstered by advocacy efforts (Mark, 2002). Advocacy is often necessary because music programs are frequently not considered part of the academic core, making them vulnerable to local whims and budget cuts (Elpus, 2007; Shaw, 2018). When budget shortfalls loom, individuals invested in music education often turn to advocacy efforts to persuade policymakers and the public of the importance and value of music in classrooms (Burrack et al., 2014; Elpus, 2007; Major, 2013; Mark, 2005). Advocates at the local, state, and national levels lobby for policy changes to further secure music education (such as the inclusion of music as a core subject), create and disseminate advocacy materials, and encourage music teachers to be more involved in advocacy practices (Hof, 2022; NAfME, 2015). These local and national advocacy efforts are frequently spearheaded by state music education associations and other organizations like the National Association for Music Education (NAfME), Vh1 Save the Music Foundation, The Grammy Foundation Campaign for Music Education, The National Association for Music Merchants (NAMM), and others.

One advocacy strategy used in music education is public recognition via awards and honors such as distinctions, cash prizes, special recognitions, or trophies (Frey & Gallus, 2017). Awards might be subject specific—like the annual Grammy award for Music Education or the Give-A-Note Foundation’s Music Education Innovator Award—or can include cross-disciplinary awards such as MacArthur Fellowships or Rhodes Scholarships. In these examples, organizations might signal the importance of music education by bringing attention to distinguished members on a larger stage, particularly in non-education arenas. Similarly, school music programs often seek recognition through music competitions and adjudicated festivals. In many cases, these events provide distinguished awards that can be prominently displayed and advertised digitally. Receiving these accolades can then be used as a symbol to bolster support in the face of budget cuts or as an advocacy tool (Austin, 1990).

Inequitable access to music education is an ever-present reality for the field, with even thriving programs often dependent upon public recognition to secure support. Studies on inequity in music education reveal a strong link between socioeconomic status, music education, public recognition, and music competitions (Albert, 2006; Costa-Giomi & Chappell, 2007; Stern, 2021). This connection has been shown to impact festival ratings (McGonigal, 2020; Perrine, 2016), participation in school music programs (Elpus & Abril, 2019; Miksza, 2007), and parental involvement (Costa-Giomi, 2008; Elpus & Grisé, 2019). Inequity not only affects the ability to offer a variety of music classes (Reimer, 2007; Shaw & Auletto, 2022), but might also negatively impact a school’s chances to receive awards that could help garner support and build advocacy needed for sustaining a music program.

Many US music programs benefit from the advocacy efforts of nonprofit organizations like the NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) Foundation. A nonprofit organization with its own board of directors, the NAMM Foundation is the charitable arm of the for-profit trade group NAMM, which represents the music, sound, and event industry (NAMM Foundation, n.d.). According to their website, the trade organization NAMM reports that they use the profits from their annual trade shows, membership fees, and private donations to fund arts education research, lobby policymakers, and provide financial support for advocacy organizations such as the NAMM Foundation (n.d.).

The NAMM Foundation’s “Best Communities for Music Education” (BCME) award is their flagship program that “recognizes and celebrates school districts with a strong commitment to music education” (NAMM Foundation, n.d.). Originally conceived in 1999 as the "Best 100 Communities for Music Education in America,” NAMM reoriented the award in 2008 to recognize any eligible school district that met a predetermined set of selection criteria. Despite its longevity and the potential advocacy implications of receiving such an award, research about the BCME award and who receives it is lacking.

Our review of extant literature revealed only one study that examined the BCME awards process and its recipients. Bergee et al. (2010) explored the factors that contributed to BCME recognition and found that secure funding was the most salient factor in whether school districts received the award. Other relevant factors included parent and community wealth as well as balanced support between music and athletics. This work was the only study we found specifically regarding the BCME awards process and recipients. Given the dearth of research about BCME and the association between socioeconomic status and opportunity, there is a need for further inquiry into the characteristics of awarded school districts. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to describe the demographic characteristics of school districts that received the National Association for Music Merchants (NAMM) Foundation’s Best Community for Music Education award in 2021 and 2022.

BCME background and application process

The NAMM Foundation selects BCME awardees using an application survey¹ developed in collaboration with the Music Research Institute from the University of Kansas and WordCraft, LLC. Applicants must submit BCME surveys by February each year. After a review period, NAMM identifies selected districts and announces the annual list to the public each April. In addition to the award itself, BCME recipients also receive a public relations toolkit with materials aiding in communication about the award (e.g. banners/logos for websites and posters to print), media engagement (including press release templates), and additional advocacy materials about the benefits of music education. Applicants must be a “school district in the U.S. with a K-12 music education program” to be eligible (NAMM, n.d.). NAMM encourages school districts to participate in the BCME program for national/community recognition, pride, increased visibility, and validation. NAMM (n.d.) also claims that this process can serve as a program auditing tool for districts who are not selected and can offer feedback for how to improve their chances of selection in future applications.

In addition to the BCME award, the NAMM Foundation has The SupportMusic Coalition, a dedicated advocacy program that partners with NAfME and other nonprofit organizations to “assure that music education is supported in communities everywhere” (NAMM Foundation, n.d.). The NAMM uses this platform to promote the BCME award as an advocacy tool for districts that want to showcase their commitment to music education to local and surrounding communities. For many districts, receiving the BCME award might function as a marker of quality akin to receiving National Blue Ribbon Schools status (U.S. Department of Education (ED), 2022), in which non-awarded districts compare themselves to awarded districts. If people view participation in the BCME program as an auditing tool like the NAMM Foundation suggests, not receiving the award might then act as the stimulus toward making policy/administrative changes in efforts to eventually receive recognition.

The BCME application survey is extensive—the 2022 edition was 62 pages—and requires detailed information pertaining to an applicant school’s music offerings at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. The survey is comprised of questions about music classes, music instruction, venues, technology, funding, teachers, and support from invested parties across entire districts (e.g. information for all individual schools within that district, the number of students at each level in the district, music course offerings and curricula taught at each level, and funding stability over the last five years). To answer these questions, the survey requires respondents to have access to data surrounding federal and local funding, school/community support (e.g. attending concerts), community music opportunities, professional development, music education opportunities for students with disabilities, and student demographics.² The survey also asks who completed the application, offering various options beyond classroom music teachers including administrators, school board members, and fine arts coordinators.

The survey is organized into categories of questions pertaining to each level of music education in the district. It utilizes a variety of question types including multiple choice, conditional multiple choice, checklists, questions with optional open responses, and open response questions. The 2022 survey also included questions about COVID-19 and how the pandemic impacted music programs and student learning in the district. See Table 1 for a complete summary of question types for each topic. The application survey does not explicitly describe the scoring process or indicate what criteria are valued in determining awardees. Several questions are optional and identified as not contributing to the applicant school’s score, while others are labeled as optional, but also indicate that they are included in the final score, contributing “up to 50 points for each response” (2022 BCME Survey, 2022) toward final tabulations. Therefore, applicants may not be aware of what responses might be weighed highly as they fill out the application survey and they have no knowledge of how many points given for any given entry. Despite our repeated requests for more information into the scoring process, the NAMM Foundation did not provide us with any details as to how applicant surveys are weighted, scored, and verified.

Table 1. 2022 BCME Survey content analysis breakdown.

Question content	Number of questions	Question types
Community music opportunities for students	8	MC; Open
Course offerings, experiences, & curriculum	9	MC; Check; CheckOR
Students w/disabilities	6	MC
Enhancement opportunities (honor groups, conference performances, private lessons)	4	MCC; MCOR; CheckOR
Equipment & technology	9	MC; CheckOR
Fine arts requirements	2	MC
Funding & music fundraising	23	MC; MCC; Open
Instruction & performance venues	15	MC
Multicultural music	5	MC; Open
Music classes (length, frequency, grade level when instruction begins)	9	MC; MCOR; Open
Music teachers	12	MC; Open
School district composition (number of buildings at each level, grades in each level; number of students in each level)	12	MC; CheckC; Open
Support-administration & community	2	Check
Teacher professional development	4	MC; CheckOR;Open
Title 1 & title 4, section A	5	MC
Other questions
COVID-related questions*	14	MC; MCC; MCOR; Open
Essay questions**	3	Open
Questions about application, person filing, contact information, & verification questions)	11	MC; Check; CheckOR; Open
Questions about past BCME recognition, music services/retailers used by school, & certificate celebration if awarded this year	4	MCC; Open

* Contains at least one optional question.

** Optional questions, but each response may contribute 50 points to score.

MC – multiple choice. MCC – conditional multiple choice. MCOR – multiple choice with optional open response. Open – open response. Check – checklist. CheckOR – checklist with optional open response.

Method

To construct a comprehensive profile of recent BCME awardees, we collected demographic information for all 2021 and 2022 BCME-awarded school districts using the databases from the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) and the Common Core of Data (CCD). These resources provided us community-level and district-level information for several criteria relevant to this study. For each school district, we collected the following: NCES locale designation, median community income, race/ethnicity percentages, percentage of population below the federal poverty line, and educational attainment of parents with children in public school. Because access to a fine arts coordinator could provide an advantage in applying, we used publicly available information from district websites to determine the prevalence of fine arts coordinators amongst awarded school districts. The NAMM Foundation did not grant us access to applicant lists to compute acceptance rates or to examine differences between awarded and non-awarded school districts.

Noticing significant overlap between the 2021–2022 BCME awardees, we decided to gauge how frequently BCME-awarded districts are recognized every year. To learn more about districts that repeatedly received the award, we also gathered available BCME lists from 2005–2020. We obtained the lists of awardees from 2016–2022 via the NAMM Foundation website. Next, we used the Wayback Machine, a publicly available digital internet archive (Murphy et al., 2007), to gather BCME lists from 2005–2016. Though the award was started in 1999, we were not able to obtain any BCME lists prior to 2005. We verified each district name via their websites/zip codes. We also created a heatmap of 2022 awardee zip codes. Areas of the country with more BCME-awarded districts appeared brighter—or hotter—than cooler, less represented locations.

To analyze the data, we calculated descriptive statistics focusing on appropriate means, medians, and ranges. We made comparisons between BCME results and national averages, where relevant, to demonstrate how BCME districts may differ from non-awarded districts.

Results

In 2021, the NAMM Foundation awarded 687 school districts with the BCME award. In 2022, that number grew to 738. Both numbers are slightly below the number of awarded districts in 2020 (N = 754), which may be attributed to fewer applicants due to the impacts of COVID-19. When comparing BCME awardee lists for 2021 and 2022, roughly 90% of the awarded school districts received the award both years. For instance, in 2022, there were only 86 new school districts (11.6%) that did not appear on the 2021 list. Additionally, there were 90 districts (13.1%) on the 2021 BCME list that did not appear on the 2022 list.

Race/ethnicity

We created a composite profile of community racial demographics by calculating the individual means of each race/ethnicity category collected by NCES. Then we combined the aggregate data from all awarded districts to depict the “average” BCME-awarded district in 2021/2022. The racial demographics of the average BCME-awarded community was majority White (72.2%), followed by Hispanic/Latino (12.7%), Black (7.8%), Asian (4.9%), and all other racial communities (each less than 1%). See Figure 1 for complete racial/ethnic demographics of 2021/2022 BCME awardees.

Figure 1. 2021/2022 composite community racial demographics.

Recognizing that the 2021 and 2022 lists were not identical, we also examined the new additions to the 2022 list (N = 86) to identify whether new additions were demographically different from districts that were also awarded in 2021. Other than slight increases in Black and Hispanic/Latino representation (+.1% and +1.1% respectively), there was little difference in the racial make-up of newly added districts in the 2022 BCME awards.

Because our data relied upon NCES databases of community-level racial demographics, we chose to compare our demographic profile of BCME-awarded school districts to 2020 U.S. Census data. We did not have access to racial demographic data of students in BCME-awarded school districts. Compared to 2020 U.S. census data, the racial demographics of BCME-awarded school districts were roughly 13% more White than the general population (59.3%) (U.S. Census Bureau Quickfacts: United States, 2022). Conversely, compared to the general population, BCME-awarded districts were 5.8% less Black, 6.2% less Hispanic/Latino, and 1.2% less Asian. See Figure 2 for full comparisons between BCME demographics and 2020 U.S. Census estimates.

Figure 2. Comparative racial demographics.

Economic indicators

We collected income information for both the average income of all households in the community and the average income of parents with children enrolled in school. This provided us insight into both school and district-level economies. We found both datasets important to our study because aspects of the BCME application concern music education opportunities in the school and community. These two indicators have relevance also due to the impact of property taxes on school funding.

The median income of BCME communities was almost $14,000 higher (Mdn = $81,509, range: $30,653–250,001) than the most recently reported national median (U.S. Census Bureau, 2022b). See Table 2 for complete income information for 2021 and 2022 awardees. Among BCME-awarded districts, the median income level of parents with children in school was $20,442 higher ($101,951, range: $30,156–250,001) than national community median income.

Table 2. Comparison of household income, BCME vs. national averages.

Household Income Data: 2021/2022 BCME awardees	Median	Range	SD
Community	$81,509	30,653 − 250,001	32,008
Parents with children in school	$101,951	30,156–250,001	42,525
Household Income Data: 2020 Census*	Median
All households	$67,521
Family households	$86,372

Percentages of BCME awardees below the federal poverty line were comparable to national averages (11.60% compared to a national average of 11.63%) (Creamer, 2022; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2022). Although this description of BCME awardees might appear comparable to the general population, a closer look revealed that the range of awarded school districts with families living below the federal poverty line skewed the reported average (range: 0.00–59.9%) and disguised notable income disparities. When viewing median calculations of poverty, 2021/2022 BCME-awarded districts have roughly 3% fewer families (Mdn = 8.7%) below the poverty line, suggesting that BCME-awarded districts skew wealthier than average school districts.

Locale/urbanicity

Awarded districts from the most recent seven-year period (2016–2022) represented 46 of the 48 contiguous states and Washington D.C. In 2021/2022, the most represented states were New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas, while no school districts in Alaska, Hawaii, Vermont, and West Virginia received the awarded. Please see Figure 3 for a geographic heatmap of 2022 BCME awardees. Regionally, most of the BCME-awarded school districts were in the Northeast and Midwest with other concentrated pockets emerging in individual states such as Texas and California.

Figure 3. Geographic heatmap of 2022 BCME awardees.

Suburban school districts made up the majority (59.5%) of BCME awardees for 2021 and 2022.³ The next most represented locale was rural-fringe with 8.4% of the awarded-districts. The fewest number of awarded-districts were classified as city-large (urban districts), comprising just 5.3% of all BCME awardees. See Table 3 for full locale representations amongst 2021/2022 BCME-award recipients.

Table 3. 2021 & 2022 BCME recipients by locale.

NCES locale code*	Number of BCME awardees	Percentage of awardees
Suburb: all	464	59.5
City: all	120	15.5
Rural: all	104	13.4
Town: all	85	10.9
Total	773**

*Unique NCES codes (e.g. Rural-Fringe) were collapsed for space and readability.

**This comprises the total number of individual BCME awardees in 2021/2022 – repeat awardees were removed.

Educational attainment

We measured the educational attainment in communities of awarded districts using NCES information showing the percentage of individuals who have earned at least a bachelor’s degree. In 2021, the average percentage of individuals with at least a bachelor’s degree in BCME-awarded districts was 43.24% (range: 7.1–93.3%). Median educational attainment in 2021 was 39.9%. Similarly, 2022 BCME awardees expressed a mean educational attainment of 42.8% (range 5.1–93.3%), with a median of 36.8%. Compared to national averages, BCME-awarded districts have considerably higher levels of educational attainment. As of 2022, 23.5% of people aged 25 or older held at least a bachelor’s degree (U.S. Census Bureau, 2022a), nearly 20% lower than in 2022 BCME-awarded school districts.

Fine arts coordinator

Completing the BCME application survey likely requires a great deal of time and access to a range of financial, demographic, and curricular data. Because of this, some applicant districts may lack the time and access to the resources needed to complete the survey application.

The presence of a fine arts coordinator may impact a district’s ability to apply for and receive the BCME award. For this reason, we collected information on whether awarded districts employed fine arts coordinators (or other similar positions).

Across 2021 and 2022, 73% of BCME-awarded school districts employed a fine arts coordinator. Specifically, 72.6% of 2021 BCME-awarded districts had a fine arts coordinator. This percentage increased to 75.86% amongst 2022 awardees. We were unable to find research detailing the prevalence of fine arts coordinators nationally to determine how these findings compare.

Repeat awardees

From 2005–2022, 1,345 different school districts have received the BCME award. This accounts for roughly 10% of the 13,452 school districts in the United States (NCES, n.d.). Over this time, the number of BCME awardees has fluctuated from a low of 98 in 2006 to 754 in 2020. Focusing on the most recent seven years of awardees (2016–2022), the number of districts who have received the award once (n = 276) is almost the same as the number of districts who have received the award every year (n = 259). These are the award recipients listed publicly on the NAMM website.

Almost 70% of districts (n = 935) awarded since 2005 have received the award more than once with 12% having received the award more than 11 times (n = 162). These findings suggest that districts receiving the BCME award are likely to apply and receive the award more than once, though some previously awarded districts eventually stop applying.

Discussion

We encountered several limitations during data collection—the most glaring being we only had access to published lists of BCME awardees and not of all applicants. We contacted Wordcraft LLC, University of Kansas, and representatives from the National Association for Music Merchants (NAMM) Foundation repeatedly in an attempt to gather this information. Despite these efforts, we were unsuccessful. Therefore, we were unable to directly compare districts who may have applied and did not receive the award with those who were selected. We also could not make claims regarding selection criteria and acceptance rates without a list of all applicants. Additionally, the scoring/weighting process is proprietary information and not publicly available. Therefore, we could not make claims about which factors within the survey mattered most or if/how school districts of The NAMM Foundation verified their self-reported answers (e.g. funding or “community support”).

Our findings concerning socioeconomic and racial demographics echo those from related studies in music education and reinforce the established link between socioeconomic status, locale, race, and musical recognition (Costa-Giomi & Chappell, 2007; Elpus & Abril, 2019; Kinney, 2010; Nussbaum, 2022; Salvador & Allegood, 2014). We found that BCME-awarded districts consisted of considerably whiter, wealthier, and more college-educated populations than the average U.S. school district. All other racial/ethnic categories collected by NCES are underrepresented within BCME-awarded districts. While the representation of Black and Hispanic/Latino populations increased slightly amongst 2022 awardees (roughly 1%), we deemed this change insignificant.

Despite claiming to collect information on student demographics, 2021 and 2022 BCME application surveys did not collect student race or gender data at district, school, or music-program levels. There is little student information collected via the BCME application survey outside of Title 1 status and music participation. We do not know if information surrounding student race and gender is collected at any point during the BCME awards process. Community demographics from these findings therefore may not actually reflect the student populations of BCME-awarded music programs. It is possible that music classrooms in BCME districts are even whiter than the communities in which they are situated. Furthermore, despite reports that suggest curricular music education is widely available in elementary and secondary schools (Parsad & Spiegelman, 2012), white populations are often overrepresented in ensemble-based programs. This imbalance contributes to an association between race/ethnicity and school music participation (Elpus & Abril, 2019). Receiving the BCME award might then emphasize this point further.

Given the white, affluent, suburban overrepresentation amongst recipient school districts in our data, the resultant average BCME demographic profile continues to promote a story of the “haves and the have-nots.” This is most clearly seen in the focus on resources found within BCME application surveys. Even if the racial demographics of BCME awardees begin to show an increased racial diversity amongst awardees, there is no indication that this change will translate to the school music programs themselves. Without additional information, we cannot draw direct comparisons to music programs within BCME districts. Therefore, the current associations between BCME status, race, and wealth continue to reinforce a narrative that the “best” programs are in white, middle class, college-educated, suburban school districts.⁴

Capacity

We believe that the administrative capacity of a school district is the most important factor to being recognized as a BCME awardee. The commitment required to complete the 62-page application might exceed the time or resources available to classroom music teachers. This lengthy application may create an unfair barrier for smaller and under-resourced school districts depending on administrative capacity. Additionally, because of its length and specificity, it could be easy for an individual submitting the survey to incorrectly estimate or falsify information that is not readily accessible to the public. The survey asks applicants to verify that they have authority to complete the survey on behalf of the district and that the information submitted is complete and accurate (2022 BCME Survey, 2022). While we are certainly not accusing anyone of impropriety, more transparency may be needed regarding scoring/verification procedures for evaluating applicants, particularly since auditing techniques are not mentioned throughout any BCME materials we received from the NAMM Foundation. Should The NAMM Foundation consider this an issue, they might be more sensitive to how onerous applications could act as a barrier to participation for under-resourced school districts and potentially provide alternative measures. Further, the prevalence of fine arts coordinators amongst recent BCME awardees leads us to believe that their support likely eases the application process and increases the likelihood that a district may apply. Perhaps the sheer presence of a fine arts coordinator communicates a level of support and commitment to music education that the BCME award seeks to highlight.

Fine arts coordinators may be poised to seek and apply for awards such as BCME to position their school district and community in a favorable light (Miksza, 2013), particularly as music programs continue to rebuild due to COVID-19 (Grier, 2021). Fine arts coordinators might also be incentivized to justify their positions by seeking out and receiving awards like the BCME award. These factors could contribute to an overrepresentation of districts who have fine arts coordinators applying for BCME. Districts that lack a fine arts coordinator may find it more difficult to gather the required information and make time to apply–potentially creating a disadvantage for those districts due to a perceived lack of support by the NAMM Foundation.

Incentives

A cause for concern in identifying the “best” school districts for music education involves the incentives for applying. Most BCME-awarded districts are located within large suburban communities. The lack of comparable urban and rural representation invites questions as to whether there are similar incentives for non-suburban districts to apply. It is possible that the BCME award may not have the same advocacy implications in rural locales, where advocacy needs may be different from areas with larger populations. Neighboring suburban districts who compete to attract and retain students via choice programs may feel an increased need to secure awards such as BCME to distinguish themselves from their competition (Foskett, 1998; Martin, 2018). District marketization trends (Bartlett et al., 2002; DiMartino & Jessen, 2018; Wells & Holme, 2005) might accelerate this need even further by pushing school districts to find innovative ways to advertise themselves amongst the rise of school choice legislation. This imbalance continues to reinforce notions that the “best” places for music education exist in suburban communities.

What is “best”?

The BCME award may unintentionally uphold the status quo through promoting a singular definition of community support and by conflating funding with quality. There are several sections in the application survey that stress district access to financial resources. For example, the 2022 survey specifically asked how funding for music education has changed in recent years. Districts who reported that their funding had increased might be potentially presented as having more support than districts who had experienced budget cuts. This contention is supported by previous literature that identified having secure funding as instrumental to attaining BCME status (Bergee et al., 2010). We noticed that the majority of the application survey items largely focused on funding, equipment, and facilities with limited consideration for unique musical opportunities (See Table 1). Further, the application lacked any space to describe music classes qualitatively. This lack of qualitative input prevents any meaningful understanding of what is happening in music classrooms and makes it impossible for us to draw any conclusions surrounding music-making priorities in winning districts. We wonder about this focus on facilities and financial resources coming from the NAMM Foundation. The NAMM Foundation, regardless of its nonprofit designation, may serve in part to support NAMM, the trade organization. NAMM exists as a for-profit entity whose music merchants stand to financially benefit from the districts with the largest amount of financial capital. One wonders if NAMM’s motivations to continue to support the BCME data collection methods and awards format are in service of the music merchants that are invested in sustaining school music programs. The relationship between economic indicators and notions of success presented within these findings fits amongst previous research in music education (Albert, 2006; Elpus & Grisé, 2019; Hammel & Hourigan, 2022). Does the school district that has the most resources get viewed as the best? Is there an implied monetary relationship between those who are being designated as best and those who support NAMM-affiliated businesses?

Ultimately, the notion of “best” used by BCME denotes a high level of quality, without clear indication of how the quality itself is measured. There is no part of the application process we examined that explored the quality of music making occurring in applicant districts. We identified a significant absence of any qualitative identifiers in the application. This absence invites philosophical questions surrounding what it means to be “the best.” Bucura (2020) argues that excellence in music education needs to be reconceptualized and is currently measured through constructs: becoming the best, visibility, preoccupation with the outcome, and resistance to change. Are BCME districts being awarded because they continue to engage in the status quo? Are these districts just the biggest spenders? Is the implied goal compliance toward a monolithic view of success? Given the presence of suburban awardees, does this award privilege the experiences and programs found within these communities?

Advocacy tools

BCME’s use as an advocacy tool may promote a narrow public view of what represents high quality music programs. Since awarded districts receive a PR toolkit upon selection, many BCME districts prominently display BCME logos and promotional materials on their websites and social media pages. Awarded districts also frequently use provided press release templates that outline information about the award, the importance of music education, and the NAMM Foundation. These materials promote using identical language surrounding music education that might guide what communities value in music education. Furthermore, in awarded districts, distinctions like BCME may sway public opinion as to what constitutes the best for school music education by shaping how the communities view music education wholly.

Aside from engaging in lobbying and financial advocacy, organizations might also use symbolic policy tools to advocate change and enact legislation. These symbolic policy efforts often appear when “you cannot force people to change but can encourage [them]” during times of political gridlock (Mitra, 2022, p. 101). Symbolic policy tools have two defining characteristics: a reliance on persuasion of invested parties, and a need to be joined with other policy instruments to produce sustained effects (McDonnell, 1994). Symbolic policy tools thus try to appeal to existing beliefs through broad sweeping claims that the public will find desirable, such as using the neuromyth of “music makes you smarter” as an advocacy tool (Young, 2020). This approach mirrors what former NAfME president, June Hinckley, suggested about music education advocacy stating, “music education advocates needed to speak first to the audience’s vested interests… and talk later about the need for rigorous, sequential music instruction” (Elpus, 2007, p. 14). In this way, Hinckley noted the importance of advocacy starting from meeting people from a place of shared values and interests and then using those commonalities to discuss the importance of policy change.

Effective advocacy efforts require consistent and varied strategies to reach and guide target audiences (Buckley, 2009). As mentioned earlier, NAMM advocates for music in the arts via the SupportMusic Coalition (NAMM Foundation, 2015) to partner and mobilize nonprofit organizations to support music education. This has direct implications not only on how policies are written, but also how they are implemented and spread throughout communities and school districts (Shaw, 2020). For example, despite national, state, and local efforts to advocate for music education, music teachers may still be beholden to accountability policies that could lead to being fired or add to teacher stress (Shaw, 2016). Efforts by NAfME like Music in Our Schools Month or promotion of the Opportunity-to-Learn-Standards, while not tangibly changing the policy landscape, may serve as a symbol to raise awareness for music education and potentially open a policy window (Kingdon, 1993) to enact more lasting change.

By advertising that the BCME application is both a recognition of support for music education and a program auditing tool to be used by non-awardees (NAMM, n.d.), the BCME award functions as a symbolic policy tool. Recognition of BCME status encourages awarded districts to, at least, maintain their level of investment in music education and may inspire surrounding districts to also apply. Non-awarded districts may be encouraged to audit their level of investment (NAMM, 2022) should they desire to achieve BCME status—perhaps promoting music education policy diffusion⁵ (Shipan & Volden, 2008). This status could contribute to potential issues surrounding the retention of families and teachers. Families looking to relocate may see the BCME status as an appealing distinction when weighing district options. Similarly, music teachers might apply for open positions in BCME-awarded districts because it communicates a level of support that may not be presented in non-awarded districts. These instances may negatively impact surrounding districts and continue to uphold a paradigm of ‘haves and have-nots’ that is already prevalent in music education.

Policy implications and suggestions for future research

Policy implications that arise from this study understandably relate to the BCME program and the NAMM Foundation directly. However, they do not encompass the totality of policy implications that stem from this study. We believe that the BCME program should be restructured (or renamed) to dispel the singular notions of ‘best’ that are represented in these findings. Without the NAMM Foundation collecting specific information about the demographics of the districts applying, there is no way of knowing the true demographic representation of applicant districts, schools, and music programs, leaving the NAMM Foundation and the BCME exposed to further scrutiny. Regardless, the current demographic makeup of BCME awardees being connected with notions of quality should be interrogated, disentangled, and dismantled. Given the frequency of repeat awardees, NAMM should seek out exemplary school districts who do not fit the mold of current winners and invite them to apply. This effort could involve continuous reevaluation of how applicant districts discover the award and diversify the methods that are currently used to disseminate information.

Organizations that engage in music education advocacy efforts should direct resources to foster greater support for music education in underrepresented and/or under-resourced communities. Additionally, music education organizations might create their own accolades to highlight different aspects of music education beyond the BCME criteria and focus on program growth rather than markers of status or current excellence. This mirrors broader conversation in education policy surrounding accountability measures using status or growth as measures of accountability (Houston et al., 2022; Ladd & Lauen, 2010). Growth in this context might consider music education enrollment, innovation, equitable access to music technology, or equitable practices.

School districts that have budget and resource shortfalls for music education would benefit from targeted assistance from the NAMM Foundation (or other music education advocacy organizations) so that every school district might become one of the ‘best’ communities for music education moving forward.⁶ In addition to targeted financial assistance, the NAMM Foundation might consider lobbying for the creation of fine arts coordinator positions in under-resourced districts so that advocacy burdens are not placed solely onto classroom music teachers or providing incentives to NAMM-affiliated companies (e.g. Yamaha) to donate instruments/other resources. In instances where this is not feasible, the NAMM Foundation could devise alternative application procedures to further reduce the burden of applying.

The implications of this study extend beyond the BCME award and the NAMM Foundation. School districts that value external accolades should consider how they gauge the quality of their programs and whether this aligns with other district policies. In cases where there is misalignment, policies may be revised or rewritten to better reflect district values and support for music education and the need for providing rich, diverse musical experiences. School districts that seek to advocate for their music education programs by pursuing external accolades might also contextualize the meaning of each award and strive to balance individual impact by promoting or creating other measures that are more community-centered and culturally responsive. These efforts can combine with other symbolic policy tools, like the BCME award, to produce sustained advocacy impacts by continually keeping support for music education in the public sphere as well as advocating for diverse experiences that do not promote monolithic views of quality.

There are many suggestions for future research concerning the BCME program. Future research might include exploring applicant motivations to apply for the BCME award, perceived benefits, or reasons why previous awardees may discontinue applying. Researchers could also explore perspectives of applicants who did not receive the BCME award at perceived impacts as well as analyze neighboring districts to BCME awardees for potential influences on community support and local education policy. This research could have future implications for understanding what a BCME designation might mean for the underrepresented parts of the country as well as exploring under-examined elements of policy diffusion in music education. Lastly, researchers could explore the use of symbolic policy tools throughout music education advocacy and education policy arenas at large to understand how they operate and combine with other policy initiatives. For instance, this effort might entail examining community perceptions and support for district music programs that have robust advertising via programs like BCME and music programs that do not. Others might investigate how symbolic policy efforts, such as offering a fine arts diploma for students who remain in performing arts through high school graduation, may impact student retention or administrator support. Doing so may inspire the creation of innovative policy strategies in attempts to foster more equitable and broad support for music education.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s). Authors have no affiliation with the NAMM Foundation or the BCME award.

Notes

1 The BCME application survey can be found online at the NAMM Foundation website: https://www.nammfoundation.org/what-we-do/best-communities-music-education.

2 Despite mentioning that information surrounding student demographics are required to complete the application survey, the 2021 and 2022 BCME surveys did not collect any information surrounding student race or gender. This remains true for the 2024 survey– active at the time of this writing.

3 We used NCES locale codes supplied by the CCD for this effort.

4 Apart from locale, geographic concentrations that emerged through data analysis might be explained due to differences in the number of school districts between individual states. States that have a higher number of school districts, have more opportunity to apply and be represented within BCME lists- thus resulting in the emergence of a geographic concentration.

5 Policy diffusion refers to how policy decisions in one jurisdiction influence policymaking in other jurisdictions (Shipan & Volden, 2008). Mitra (2022) states that diffusion looks beyond whether policies remain intact and considers how policies can spread to other contexts.

6 NAMM Foundation financial disclosures from 2022 (ProPublica, 2024) indicate the top three program services of the charitable organization were contributions toward the Museum of Making Music ($1,112,856), paid advertising ($696,544), and funding music education research ($588,861). Further, in 2023, the NAMM Foundation awarded $477,500 to music-making organizations around the world (NAMM Foundation, 2023) We argue that the NAMM Foundation should use these resources to provide direct assistance to economically-disadvantaged school districts.