The National Coalition for Core Arts Standards (NCCAS) has released a narrative framework document that details the rationale, goals and strategy of the new National Standards for Arts Education that are currently being written by five arts discipline teams. The National Core Arts Standards: A Conceptual Framework for Arts Learning will be formally released as part of a streaming video presentation during the January 18-20 meeting of the coalition’s leadership and writing teams at the New York City headquarters of The College Board.
The broadcast presentation is scheduled for Friday, January 18, at 4 p.m. EST, via the NCCAS wiki at http://nccas.wikispaces.com. Questions and comments will be fielded through a companion live blog. Arts education specialists, teachers, administrators, teaching artists, parents and community members are encouraged to attend. Viewers should plan to sign into the stream 15 minutes prior to start time for live attendance; archival video and blog copies will be posted on the site 24 hours after the event closes.
NCCAS, a coalition of nine national arts and education organizations, is committed to developing a next generation of voluntary, researched-based arts education standards that will build on the foundation created by the 1994 document (and the 2005 Standards for Learning and Teaching Dance in the Arts), 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.
The framework document guides readers through the historical context for arts education and standards, the foundational research and philosophical basis for the work, and explores what it means to be artistically literate, based on the artistic processes of creating, performing/presenting/producing, responding and connecting. The narrative also articulates the fundamental creative arts practices by which students learn in individual arts disciplines and transfer their knowledge, skills and habits to other contexts and settings.
During the video presentation, NCCAS framing committee members will walk the audience through the narrative document and its companion matrix—a template that provides a unified view of the standards for the five arts disciplines while allowing the distinguishing characteristics of each discipline to be preserved. Leadership and the discipline chairs will also explain an updated timeline for the work and will share plans for a draft review process that is set to begin this summer.
To learn more about the work of creating the next generation of voluntary national arts standards or to access the live stream or video archives, please visit the National Coalition for Core Arts Standards website.
More information
- Argy Nestor, Visual and Performing Arts Specialist
Maine Department of Education
207-624-6825
argy.nestor@maine.gov - National Coalition for Core Arts Standards website