Music Education and Educators in Missouri, Iowa, and Illinois

Abstract

The purpose of this survey study was to provide a demographic profile of PK-12 public school music teachers and details about the public school music teaching positions in Missouri, Iowa, and Illinois. An invitation to complete a questionnaire was emailed to all PK-12 public school music teachers in these three states whose email addresses could be gathered via a school district website search or phone call to the district, yielding a 26.1% response rate in Missouri, a 35.1% response rate in Iowa, and a 31.7% response rate in Illinois. The questionnaire contained items used to gather demographic data about the music teachers and details about their class offerings. Results indicate over 93% of music teachers in these three states identify as White and approximately two thirds identify as women. The teachers in these three states who responded to the survey travel less for their positions compared with music teachers in the United States as a whole, and findings were inconsistent between the states with respect to experience level and school location. Further, 28% to 47% of secondary-level educators in these three states teach a music class that is not band, choir, or orchestra.

Is Music Education in Tune With the Pursuit of Equity? An Examination of Access to Music Education in Michigan’s Schools

“…They also differed in terms of job status and were much more likely to be part-time and itinerant. These numbers are similar to earlier studies estimating the composition of the music teacher workforce (McKoy, 2012; Pembrook & Craig, 2002) and to recent estimates based on teacher candidates applying for music licensure (Elpus, 2015) as well as from surveys of in-service teachers in Missouri, Iowa, and Illinois (Prendergast, 2020).…”

“…First, our description of the music teaching force represents the most detailed state-level description of music teachers in the literature, and these results continue to echo the notion that music teachers are disproportionately White—even more so than the already nondiverse pool of teachers as a whole. Mirroring Gardner’s (2010) national analysis and the recent look at several midwestern states (Prendergast, 2020), we saw that music teachers are more likely to teach in multiple buildings and to be part-time employees. This also lends credence to previous research suggesting that although many schools have maintained some kind of music program in the modern accountability era, these programs have been hollowed out, with fewer teachers and infrequent instruction.…”