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.