National Coalition for Core Arts Standards
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Report on International Arts Education Standards
Best Pedagogical Practices in Dance Education
Report on College Learning in the Arts
21C Skills Dance Gap Analysis NDEO 2005 Standards
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NDEO Founding President Rima Faber has been announced as the writing chair for dance.
NDEO Partners with Arts Organizations to form the National Coalition for Core Arts Standards
A newly formed partnership of organizations and states will lead the development of new core arts standards for the United States.
The National Coalition for Core Arts Standards (NCCAS) plans to complete its work and release new, national voluntary arts education standards in early 2014. The standards will describe what students should know and be able to do as a result of a quality curricular arts education program.
The current National Standards for Arts Education have been adopted or adapted by forty-nine state departments of education, and have become the benchmark document by which K-12 arts learning is measured. Curriculum designers, teacher training programs, funders, and federal and state policy makers have relied on the original 1994 national arts standards and, more recently, the 2005 Standards for Learning and Teaching Dance in the Arts to help guide their decision-making.
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NCCAS is committed to developing a next generation of
voluntary arts education standards that will build on the foundations
created by the 1994 and 2005 documents, support the 21st-century needs
of students and teachers, help ensure that all students are college and
career ready, and affirm the place of arts education in a balanced core
curriculum.
Membership is the coalition was formalized and a strategy
framework developed following a February meeting at the New York City
headquarters of the College Board. NCCAS governing organizations are:
American Alliance for Theatre and Education (AATE)
Arts Education Partnership (AEP)
Educational Theatre Association (EdTA)
The College Board
National Association for Music Education (NAfME) -- formerly MENC
National Art Education Association (NAEA)
National Dance Education Organization (NDEO)
State Education Agency for Directors of Arts Education (SEADAE)
The College Board gathering of the coalition was the
culmination of a state-led organizing process that began in May, 2010,
at a meeting convened by SEADAE in Washington, D.C. and attended by the
above groups, eighteen state departments of education, and eight other
national arts and education organizations. In the past year, state
directors of arts education and the NCCAS partners have held a series of
web-based meetings designed to help refine the needs, expectations, and
timeline in the development of core arts standards.
A recent SEADAE survey of arts education directors in
forty-three state departments of education indicated that nineteen of
the states planning revision of their arts standards in the next two
years are willing to postpone that process until the new national arts
education standards are complete so as to inform their efforts.
NCCAS will make the creation of the new core arts standards
an inclusive process, with input from a broad range of arts educators
and decision-makers. The newly developed standards will be grounded in
arts education best practice drawn from the United States and abroad, as
well as a comprehensive review of developmental research.
The College Board has gathered and organized childhood and higher education data—including the following reports: Report on International Arts Education Standards, Best Pedagogical Practices in Dance Education, and Report on College Learning in the Arts.
In creating the next generation of core arts standards, the
primary goal of NCCAS is to help classroom educators better implement
and assess standards-based arts instruction in their schools. Toward
that goal, the new arts standards will address 21st-century skills,
guide the preparation of next-generation of arts educators, and embrace
new technology, pedagogy, and changing modes of learning.
To take full advantage of today’s digital information tools,
the new arts standards will exist in an online “evergreen” format,
allowing for periodic, scheduled reviews and updates, and
wiki-environments where student work, lesson plans, and new research can
be posted to support standards-based learning and teaching.
An NCCAS committee is publishing a report that summarizes
the current status of arts education in America; the status of arts
education standards in the states; the context of arts education in a
well-rounded education; and an analysis of the needs for the next
generation of arts standards. The report will be made public early fall
2011.
NCCAS’s current timeline includes the creation of discipline
writing teams in November, 2011, which will be followed by a six-month
period of writing, review, and revision draft work.
Jonathan Katz, CEO of the National Assembly of State Arts
Agencies (NASAA), expressed strong enthusiasm for NCCAS’s reinvisioning
of arts standards: “Designing standards takes broad and deep knowledge
of subject matter, an informed understanding of the kind of guidance
educators need, and creative imagining of which competencies will best
prepare students for the future challenges they will face. All students
learn using some combination of the arts, numeracy and literacy. The
resource for learning that this group, representing teachers of the arts
and arts education policy makers, is in a position to provide is
tremendously important.”
Virginia M. Barry, New Hampshire Commissioner of Education,
also stated her support: “I’m very encouraged that NCCAS has taken the
first steps towards re-imagining the arts standards for our students and
teachers,” she said. “When you have rich and clearly defined standards,
you create expectations and can begin the process of articulating
measurable learning in arts education. The arts are truly special—dance,
music, visual art, and theatre give students a voice they might not
otherwise have and integrate new technology in ways that truly engages
and energizes learners. New Hampshire believes that all students should
have access to a well-balanced curriculum that supports whole-person
development—arts are critical to a sense of competence, through
discipline, dedication, diligence and commitment.” |
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