Advocacy & Policy
Music Education Is a Right. Not a Privilege. Not an Extracurricular.
We are Santi and Avril, two DC public school students making the case through community work and advocacy that every child deserves sustained music education at school, not just outside it.
The Gap
Washington, D.C., has a formal mandate for music education. The policy exists. Federal Title I and Title IV-A funds, the largest streams of federal money for low-income schools, are available to use for music. And yet, most Title I schools lack the kind of music instruction that builds skills progressively over the years—with dedicated teachers, instruments, and a curriculum that grows with the student.
Minimum requirements can be met in many ways. Students who want deeper training often have to go outside the school system entirely to programs such as the DC Youth Orchestra Program, the DC Strings Workshop, Sitar Arts Center, Washington Musical Pathways, or other after-school community programs. Many families in DC's most underserved communities never know those options exist.
That gap is not distributed evenly. A 2020 analysis found that Wards 7 and 8—home to nearly 45,000 children—received just 10.6% of DC's arts commission funding, a disparity so significant that DC's own Commission on Arts and Humanities officially acknowledged it and launched a formal equity reform program in response. The direction is right. The work continues.
Play for Music Education connects families to local programs outside the school system—and we will keep doing that work. But our hope is that every child, regardless of zip code, can access the well-documented benefits of music education within their formal education, not despite it.
Why DC is Different from Other States
In every other state, parents can hold their elected officials accountable for education funding decisions. They have voting senators, state representatives, and state-level protections that create consequences for cuts.
DC parents can call Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, a committed advocate for DC residents and a co-sponsor of the GAAME Act, but she cannot cast a floor vote in the House. Congress controls DC's budget directly, and DC residents have no voting representation in the body making those decisions.
That structural difference matters. DC has the policy. DC has access to the funds. The mechanism that makes those policies actionable everywhere else is weaker here.
“Access to music and arts education shouldn’t depend on a student’s zip code or family income.”
The GAAME Act
In March 2026, Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-NY), Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ), and Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL) reintroduced the Guarantee Access to Arts and Music Education (GAAME) Act of 2026, legislation that would incentivize schools to use existing Title I federal funds for sustained, standards-based music education taught by certified educators. DC's own Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton is a co-sponsor.
The bill aims to provide funding for certified music teachers, instruments, professional development, and standards-based music instruction in historically underserved schools.
We support this bill. As DC public school students, co-founders of a youth-led initiative, and residents of a city without a voting voice in the chamber passing this legislation, we are precisely who the GAAME Act was written for.
We are not asking Congress to believe music education matters. We are bringing proof that it does, from DC schools, DC wards, and DC families.
In March 2026, during Music in Our Schools Month, we met with Dr. Juan A. Rios Jr., Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Fellow at Senator Booker's office, to discuss the GAAME Act and its specific relevance to DC families. That conversation reinforced what we see on the ground every week: the need is real, and federal action is one of the few tools available to address it here.
A family in Ward 8 and a family a mile away in Silver Spring, Maryland, pay the same federal taxes. The family in Silver Spring has two senators, eight voting members of Congress, a state legislature, and a state law requiring that arts funding be protected year over year. Their kids have guaranteed access to school orchestra programs.
DC spends 2.5 times more per student than Montgomery County, reflecting the city's unique costs and student needs, and still has far fewer schools with sustained instrumental music programs.
That is not a spending problem. That is an accountability problem—the kind that, in other jurisdictions, produces state laws and funding protections that guarantee music education as part of every child's education. In DC, that mechanism is weakened. The GAAME Act is one of the few federal tools that can compensate for it.
Take Action
Has your child’s school reduced or eliminated music programming?
Your experience is evidence of a systemic problem. Sharing your story helps us advocate more effectively for every family in DC.
Please share your story at info@playformusiceducation.org
Include your name, ward/school, what changed, and how it affects your family. We will use your testimony for our advocacy efforts.
Are you an organization or individual who would like to partner with us?
If you represent a school, music program, institution, or funder and want to partner on advocacy, programming, or our 2026 Music Education Programs Fair please reach out to us at info@playformusiceducation.org