The National Coalition for Core Arts Standards (NCCAS) has just completed a “Tier 1” partial draft review of the re-imagined standards. Based on responses of nearly 500 respondents chosen as individuals with expertise or influence in arts education, the writers of the standards are moving forward to refine the structure and scope of the standards and to complete the draft of the materials.
The reviewers represented experts in the art forms around which the standards are constructed: Dance, Media Arts, Music, Theatre, and Visual Art.
The largest group of reviewers was active curricular/school-based teachers, but teaching artists, state arts agency employees, higher education faculty, school administrators, and representatives of arts and cultural organizations also responded.
NCCAS intends to complete the draft and circulate it for public comment in January 2014, and to release the standards in the Spring of 2014.
With that release, the Coalition is confident that the field of arts education will make a significant step forward. Ninety percent of the reviewers commented on the work overall with agreement that “the standards will be useful for describing learning in the arts to key stakeholders.”
Follow progress on the National Standards on the NCCAS website.
An overview of the Standards roundup on the NAfME website
Roz Fehr, NAfME Managing Editor for News, May 2, 2013. © National Association for Music Education
