Steven Van Zandt says rock 'n' roll saved his life. Now he wants to return the favor.

The E Street Band guitarist and Sopranos star began sowing the seeds five years ago with the launch of Little Steven's Underground Garage, an internationally broadcast weekly radio show that celebrates his favorite genre — garage rock, a sound that evokes images of teens practicing in somebody's parents' suburban garage.

Last year, he created the non-profit Rock and Roll Forever Foundation as a vehicle to preserve the music that so shaped his life.

Monday, he will unveil the foundation's first project: a middle- and high-school curriculum designed to introduce a new generation of teens to the music. He planned to make the announcement in the nation's capital, where he is playing two concerts with Bruce Springsteen and the other E Streeters.
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LITTLE STEVEN’S ROCK AND ROLL HIGH SCHOOL MENC: PDF
THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR MUSIC EDUCATION, SCHOLASTIC, AND THE ROCK AND ROLL FOREVER FOUNDATION TO BRING ROCK AND ROLL MUSIC EDUCATION INTO CLASSROOMS NATIONWIDE
MENC: The National Association for Music Education, Scholastic, and musician/actor/philanthropist Steven Van Zandt through his Rock and Roll Forever Foundation, have joined efforts to bring Rock and Roll history and music appreciation into classrooms through the development of a Rock and Roll music education program. The Little Steven’s Rock and Roll High School is targeted to launch in middle and high-schools in 2008/2009, highlighting the impact that Rock and Roll music had on historic events in the country and around the world.

The Capitol Street Shuffle
That's guitarist/singer Steve Van Zandt of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band -- a.k.a. Little Stevie, a.k.a. Miami Steve, a.k.a. Silvio Dante, Tony Soprano's consigliere -- at a sit down in the Capitol yesterday with Sens. Bob Menendez and Frank Lautenberg.

The project, being created in partnership with education publisher Scholastic’s InSchool division, is still in development.
The plan is to distribute a 40-chapter curriculum, including teachers’ guide, lesson plans, DVDs, CDs and Web-based resources, free, beginning with the 2008-09 academic year, to the nation’s 30,000 or so middle and high schools.
With this effort, Van Zandt joins a long line of artists who are rallying to keep music education from falling through the cracks, a victim of school budget cuts and the national focus on math and reading. Paul McCartney, Quincy Jones and John Mayer, for example, in recent years have promoted efforts to put musical instruments into the hands of schoolchildren.
Van Zandt strikes a different note. He wants to explore the cultural and historic impact of rock, beginning with pioneers such as Little Richard and Elvis Presley, through soul music, early girl groups, the British invasion, the psychedelic period and ending with today’s newer groups.
“We’re trying to reach everybody, whether a musician, a rock ‘n’ roll fan or not. We’re going to make a case that this art form is so interesting that you will be absolutely compelled to listen to it, and maybe even learn how to play it.”
And he is working with Scholastic to ensure course materials meet national education standards, so it could be used not only in music classes but also for humanities or social studies courses.

Van Zandt “is committed to not only making this something that kids will be excited about but also making it something that teachers and administrators can get behind,” says Ann Amstutz Hayes, a Scholastic vice president.

Van Zandt will create and edit the content, and he plans to ask rock journalists and musicians to contribute. A quick peek at topics he expects to address:

•Rock as social commentary. The lesson might begin with Woody Guthrie, include The Beatles’ Taxman and Revolution, Jefferson Airplane’s Volunteers, and today’s hip-hop.

•Rock’s influences. A discussion of Procol Harum, say, and The Byrds’ Mr. Tambourine Man will lead to an exploration of works by Johann Sebastian Bach.

• Rock as “the great equalizer.” Van Zandt says it is perhaps the only art form where races, classes and genders find common ground. “It’s going to be a liberating thing for black kids to know they invented rock ‘n’ roll.”