Immersive Music Challenge Implementation Study

The D’Addario Foundation’s (D’Addario) Immersive Music Challenge (IMC) is an initiative to improve student achievement and social-and-emotional wellbeing through music instruction and mentoring for students in grades 2 – 12, beginning in the early primary grades. IMC implementation partners include music education nonprofit organizations, and nearby school districts and charter systems across the country. This study, conducted by researchers from NORC at the University of Chicago, seeks to determine whether youth participating in IMC programming have systematically better future trajectories than similar but non-participating peers. This will focus on IMC implementations across five higher-poverty school district/charter system sites: Puente Learning Center (Independent Charter School in Boyle Heights, CA), the Long Beach Unified School District in Long Beach, CA, the Chicago Public Schools, the School District of Pontiac Michigan, and the Little Lake City School District serving Norwalk and Santa Fe Springs, California. The youth outcomes that will be studied include standardized test scores for mathematics and English Language Arts, behavioral indices, school climate, and social and emotional learning. These outcomes will be measured as of the end of students' first year of participation in IMC programming, and in at least the year following their initial enrollment.