Photo Credit: © United Childrens Music Project
National Standardized Student Survey Tool & Dashboard
Measuring Impact Across the El Sistema USA Network
Our Mission & Goals
El Sistema USA believes that quality program inputs — grounded in our guiding pillars of holistic impact, high-quality music education, and equity & access — produce measurable positive outcomes in students’ social-emotional growth, personal development, program satisfaction, and community formation.
To test and demonstrate that belief, ESUSA provides member organizations with a standardized student and parent survey tool as a core membership benefit. This initiative serves three strategic purposes:
- Building evaluation capacity for local nonprofits
- Informing evidence-based program design and self evaluation
- Advocate for music programming grounded in the El Sistema USA model and pillars.
Student and Parent Surveys
The student survey measures student program satisfaction, program impact, and student social-emotional growth across six key indicator categories:
- Confidence/Self Esteem
- Creativity
- Curiosity
- Empathy/Cultural Sensitivity
- Perseverance/Future
- Happiness/Joy
The parent survey reflects the questions in the student survey, gathering the same data points from the parent’s perspective.
Developed by research partner Deborah Ward, Ph.D., the instrument has over a decade of refinement — including seven years of use with El Sistema NJ Alliance under the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation and extensive validation through a U.S. Department of Education federal grant — and has been tested across dozens of nonprofit organizations. Questions have been continuously shaped through input from students, parents, and program directors, and capture Likert-scale responses, open ended responses, and word cloud associations at pre- and post-program intervals.
Since 2023, 46 unique El Sistema USA member organizations have participated in the surveys.
Effective program decisions begin with understanding impact. I have greatly appreciated El Sistema USA’s research initiative, which provided professionally designed tools to capture students’ self-perceptions and key social-emotional learning outcomes.
The data revealed strong feelings of community, aspirations to attend college, and positive program experiences. This process elevated student voice and enabled us to clearly communicate our program’s impact to our community and funders.”
– Aubrey Wellfare, Program Director, Kidznotes, Durham, NC
Bi-Annual Census
ESUSA has launched a standardized student survey tool on social emotional indicators for all ESUSA member programs. ESUSA will collect pre and post surveys which will be matched to measure change over time. Programs can upload their survey data to an online dashboard which will allow programs to view the results and custom analysis of their individual program. ESUSA will also provide aggregated national data analysis. This standardized national survey tool and database will allow for organizations to tell their individual and collective stories of impact. ESUSA is working with Research Consultant, Deborah Ward, Ph.D and DART Analytics on this project.
What the Data Says
ESUSA has a 10-year legacy of building and growing the sector of music for social impact in the US: Since 2020, ESUSA Membership grew by 16% to 140 total members. The field is maturing, with one-third of programs between 9 and 11 years of operation. The total number of reported students served increased by 40% to 24,916.
2022 Salary Report
ESUSA surveyed 43 member organizations on staff and faculty salaries. The report provides baseline reference data for the field. The findings demonstrate a need for stronger investment in staff across organizational budget sizes. ESUSA hopes to continue to collect data and continue the conversation with the field on how to build organizational capacity in order to support the people that drive our important work forward.
