ANNUAL “BEST 100 COMMUNITIES FOR MUSIC EDUCATION” NOW ACCEPTING ENTRIES

The VH1 Save The Music Foundation has once again joined forces with the American Music Conference and a coalition of other leading music and education organizations to present the annual “Best 100 Communities for Music Education” survey.

The deadline for submissions is Tuesday, March 8, and we hope you will participate on behalf of your community. Anyone can complete the survey online at AMC’s website, www.amc-music.org. The 2005 “Best 100″ list will be released this spring. [Let us know who you've nominated... email Sherry Brown, RISCA's Education Director at sherry@arts.ri.gov].

Even if you don’t know all the answers about music education in your hometown, the ones you do know will help; and with just a few mouse clicks, you can forward the survey link to school officials or other people who have all the facts. However you do it, the important thing is to make sure your community is represented!

After performing this survey for five years, we’ve heard back from towns and cities across America that it’s made a real difference to local music programs – not only as a spotlight on their successes, but as a shield at budget time. In addition, the host of media stories that appear each year about the survey and its outcome help raise awareness about music education as a national issue.

Here’s what one past participant, Ambridge, PA band director Salvatore Aloe, said about making the “Best 100″ list:

“We had a decent budget before, but now, there are no questions asked if they feel we need something. We were able to obtain a building next to our school to turn into a fine arts community center, and I’d say it’s because of this award. What you’re doing works.”

This entry was posted on Monday, February 28th, 2005 at 12:16 pm and is filed under Education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.