How a Pre-School Of Rock Program Affirms CMA’s Investment in Music Teachers
Categoria: Musica
This week's Country Update lead story explores Kids on Stage, the program at Hillsboro Elementary and Middle School in Tennessee that helped Miley Cyrus and Kesha get their start.
Por Billboard | 06/10/2026
When the Country Music Association decided in 2006 to plow money from its annual CMA Fest into music education, the decision seemed like a logical pursuit for a music-driven organization. It was, in fact, extending a tradition. Ten years prior, Hillsboro Elementary and Middle School in Leiper’s Fork, Tenn., outside of Nashville, had instituted Kids on Stage, a program that gave students a chance to create music, produce mini-concerts and do all the backstage work required to put on a festival. The school was struggling, it had no fine arts program, and the Williamson County Board of Education went along with Kids on Stage when investor Aubrey Preston promised to raise the money to kick start the program. Related As Final-Round Voting Opens Today for the 2026 CMA Awards, Here Are the Races We’re Watching Hilary Duff to Receive Outstanding Pop Tour of the Year Award at 2026 Billboard Live Music Summit Judge Rules Woman Accused of Shooting at Rihanna & A$AP Rocky's Home Mentally Fit to Stand Trial “The school superintendent and the board were like, ‘You know, what do we have to lose?’” Preston recalls. More importantly, there was plenty to be gained. The school’s test scores were roughly in the 15th percentile, Preston notes, but after just the first year, the students’ academic performances soared. Kids on Stage arrived two years before School of Rock launched in Philadelphia; thus, Kids on Stage was pre-School of Rock. Several years later, it unwittingly passed the baton to the CMA. The CMA celebrates music in schools when it honors 30 instructors on Oct. 7 with its 10th annual Music Teachers of Excellence at The Pinnacle in Nashville. The instructors represent 12 states, from Massachusetts to California, and one of its honorees has seen the growth of music education in Middle Tennessee firsthand. Trevor Baxter, 49, played drums as a student at Columbia Central High School, and he’s now the head of the fine arts department at Centennial High in Franklin, Tenn. He’s witnessed the “resounding” increase in attention on music education in the area. “It’s tremendous just to watch how much the arts have flourished in our county,” Baxter says. When Kids on Stage emerged 30 years ago, it was little more than an experiment. Williamson County was growing, but the Hillsboro school’s enrollment was declining. Parents who could afford it put their children in private schools, and those who could not had come to expect little from Hillsboro. The kids weren’t motivated, and unmotivated kids don’t do their homework. A few of the local adults — including some members of the music industry — locked onto music as a tonic for the situation. “What we decided was that if we could put one or two rock ‘n’ roll bands together at school, that nothing would excite a school more than having their own rock ‘n’ roll band,” says Gene Cotton, who snagged four top 40 singles on the Billboard Hot 100 in the mid-1970s, including the Kim Carnes collaboration “You’re a