Little Kids Rock

Every young person has the right to express themselves and deserves to see themselves represented in their education. Yet our public education system does not reflect the interests and cultures of the young people it serves.

Ours is an age of unprecedented diversity. The five most popular musical genres of today—rap, rock, pop, Latin, and R&B—primarily originated in communities of color and account for 76% of the music listened to by the American public. However, this music is systematically excluded from schools, which overemphasize Western, conservatory-style music. Whether this is a conscious exclusion or an unexamined practice, too many young people do not recognize themselves, their music, or their ways of learning in existing offerings. The result is that 80% of children will leave music education as soon as it becomes an elective.

Music education cannot change the lives of children it does not reach. An Elevate Prize would dramatically expand the adoption of our model of culturally sustaining, student-centered, and highly inclusive programming at sites across the country and contribute to the expansion and democratization of American music education.

I spent much of my childhood in Venezuela where I experienced my first glimpse of bone-crushing poverty. The disparity between what I and my friends at the American school had versus what the local kids had made a lasting impression on me. 

In 1992, I began working with the children of immigrant farmworkers through the Migrant Education program in East Palo Alto. The city was the murder capital of the US that year. However, it was there that I learned to love teaching. So began a ten-year career as a first-grade, bilingual classroom teacher.

Frustrated by the lack of music at my school, I decided to offer a single guitar class to my students. I developed a revolutionary new approach to music education, one that favored and centralized the music and culture of my students. The impact on my kids and school was transformational. Tough kids softened up. Shy kids spoke up. Struggling kids stepped up.

These experiences led me to found Little Kids Rock, a nonprofit that is reshaping music education to be more equitable, diverse, and inclusive. Over the past two decades, we’ve become leaders of one of the largest educational reform movements in music education.

Little Kids Rock is driven by a strong desire to reduce pain and suffering in the world, which we accomplish by empowering young people through the power of music-making. By giving young people a voice to express themselves and their diverse cultural perspectives, I believe that we can make the world a more harmonious place. The future of the American experiment in representative democracy is in our kids’ hands. 

Our work bridges the cultural chasm that exists between music taught in schools and music students experience in their everyday lives. The professional development and curriculum we supply builds teachers’ cultural competence so they can effectively address the astonishing dropout trend faced by music programs. We also donate badly needed musical instruments.

Thousands of public schools have launched programs based on our methodology and using our resources. We also build cultural competence at the collegiate level: 60+ colleges and universities have incorporated our program into their music education degree programs to prepare future music educators for the classroom. 

To date, Little Kids Rock has certified 6,500 instructors who have brought music education to more than 1,000,000 young people.

There is no one-size-fits-all in the world of music and nor can there be one in music education. We know that a Western conservatory model of music education does work for some students. For many others, its unfamiliar repertoire, its focus on precise recitation and its mathematical, theory-based approach to music-making pose insurmountable obstacles, winnowing down the number of children who can (or want to) participate in music.

Our method is a more linguistic, hands-on approach that leans into the use of music as a tool for individual and cultural expression. Skills like composition (songwriting) and improvisation (soloing), empower young people to communicate their thoughts, feelings, and ideas. Focusing on music students already know and love allows them to see themselves and their specific communities and cultures reflected in their education. All of this has a profound impact on their well-being. 

Our innovative model is beginning to impact the entire music education ecosystem. Large school districts, state departments of education, professional associations, and institutions of higher education incorporating our program and priorities as their own. This is leading to lasting, systemic change. It’s also instilling democratic norms into our schools, a benefit to our society at large.

Our impact is achieved via the following steps:

1. Training: We offer training workshops to individuals working with young people in any capacity to prepare them to offer culturally relevant, student-centered music instruction.

2. Community: We connect instructors with their peers to foster collaboration.

3. Curriculum: We develop a diverse curriculum that engages students of all backgrounds and is accessible to students of all abilities.

4. Equipment: We provide resources such as instruments, music production equipment, online learning software, etc. to set up our instructors and their students for success.

5. Partnerships: We partner with school districts and higher education organizations to bring our program to scale.

Annual evaluations show:

• 90% of students felt happier and/or more confident

• 88% of students wanted to come to school

• 84% of students were more likely to express themselves

Our program has been adopted by many of the nation’s largest school systems including Los Angeles Unified School District, Chicago Public Schools, and Dallas Independent School District. By scaling our program to an even greater audience, we can transform the music education system so that equity and cultural competence become a hallmark of music programs everywhere.