The Status of Arts Assessment in the United States

Based on data gathered from members of SEADAE, the State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education, the authors report on current priorities and practices in dance, media arts, music, theatre, and visual arts assessment in states across the nation and in Department of Defense schools around the world. With the 2014 publication of the National Core Arts Standards and the then-impending replacement of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) by the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 (ESSA), it became clear that conditions and resources at national and state levels had undergone significant change since the completion of the 2008 SEADAE study of arts assessment practices. New questions relative to current policy and practice needed to be addressed in order to inform the approach to and development of state and local assessment in the arts, the outcomes of which must inform and raise the quality of instruction in today’s arts classrooms.

Measuring Student Learning in Michigan

States have pursued various paths in their quest for high-quality assessments that would facilitate measures of student achievement/growth in traditionally nontested subjects and grades. In 2012, Michigan began an ambitious arts assessment program, termed the Michigan Arts Education Instruction and Assessment project (MAEIA), which produced three tools: an arts education blueprint, a program review tool, and arts assessment specifications/prototypes. Projects like MAEIA present opportunities to understand and contextualize current trends and the broader context of arts assessment and arts standards. This chapter discusses the local and national context for the MAEIA work and reviews the components of the project. It details the project work to date, offering a critical analysis of the project’s process, goals, outcomes, and the successes and challenges inherent to the work. Last, it offers conclusions and discusses the implications and unresolved questions surrounding the MAEIA project.

The South Carolina Arts Assessment Program

This chapter describes the music assessment for the South Carolina Arts Assessment Program (SCAAP) and the cycle of continual improvement used in the development and maintenance of the assessment. The SCAAP is a state-level arts assessment program that has been in operation for more than 10 years. The chapter describes the history and development of all aspects of the assessment. Then, the chapter reviews the analyses undertaken each year as part of the assessment cycle, including a review of the results from the most recent administration of the assessment. After discussing the development and technical characteristics of the assessment, the chapter reviews some of the investigations that the assessment developers have undertaken using the music assessment. Finally, the chapter describes lessons that will be beneficial to others interested in developing technically sound assessments in music.

The Florida Performing Fine Arts Assessment Project

This chapter outlines the background, philosophy, and process associated with the “Race to the Top” Florida Performing Fine Arts Assessment Project. On August 24, 2010, the US Department of Education announced that Florida was a recipient of the federal Race to the Top Phase 2 competition. Through a competitive process, the Florida Department of Education awarded the Polk County Florida School Board a total of $5.7 million to develop a statewide assessment tool in the performing arts for the creation of a district-developed test item bank in seven hard-to-measure areas that included the performing arts. The project involved approximately 450 performing arts teachers, supervisors, administrators, and university faculty. Project leaders felt it was imperative to develop an assessment that reflected activities and experiences within a realistic performing fine arts classroom environment with two interrelated assessments: (1) a performing task, and (2) a written test.