the music ed advocate
The Music Ed Advocate is your resource for accessing solid research about the power, validity and importance of music education. Our goal is to provide a guide to primary resources, as well as statistics, facts and anecdotal evidence, culled from hundreds of research studies, that verifies the importance of music in education. Most importantly, we are here to give you the resources you need to defend your school's music classes and teachers, to justify their funding expansion, and to fully realize how vital the study of music is for children as they grow.
This resource was crafted for anyone seeking to improve educational standards for their children, or their students. It is built to serve teachers as well as administrators, and parents as much as college students and young scholars. Most importantly, this site serves to make scholarship accessible to those who don't have the time to spend hours in a library: parents and education professionals. While we can not provide you scholarly articles directly, this site provides you information on articles and research that pertains to your own individual concerns about music education, and the skills you need to find these articles for yourself, through THE LIBRARY above.
All of the information on The Music Ed Advocate is presented with full source bibliographies, including tips for easily finding the original published articles for yourself via RESEARCH 101. Whether you're a parent, teacher, administrator, or student, we hope this serves you well in fighting for strong music programs in your schools, eases the burdens of your activism, and hopefully ignites a new love and appreciation for research and scholarship.
To start exploring, enter THE LIBRARY from the home page. There, you will find a variety of categories within the research fields applied to music and education, as well as our running full bibliography of scholarship, a "QUICK FACTS" sheet with statistical evidence of the benefits of music education, and a brief guide to mastering the craft of research for yourself in RESEARCH 101.
To learn about the impact music education has had throughout history, click on WHO'S WHO. Here you will find our primary thesis, the key to our mission, accompanied by a listing of important scientists, philosophers, and others who contributed to the evolution of our modern culture, who also happened to be accomplished musicians.
For links to online popular press articles, as well as other resources and organizations united in the struggle to support arts education, visit THE EXCHANGE.
If you have a question, or would like to tell us about your own advocacy, click CONTACT. We certainly always welcome input on improving the site to better serve your needs, and we always welcome new resources and studies to add to our collection.
And thanks, so much, for visiting our resource.
- Kevin Cummines, Founder and Curator, The Music Ed Advocate