The central purposes of education standards are to identify the learning that we want for all of our students and to drive improvement in the system that delivers that learning. “CORE” Cyber home

The National Coalition for Core Arts Standards is a partnership of organizations and states that lead the revision of the 1994 National Standards for Arts Education in order to help guide curriculum designers, teacher training programs, and federal and state policy makers in arts education. Originally created in 1994….

…the National Arts Standards were completely revised to emphasize that collaboration and communication are the key components of the 21 st century skill set desired by employers and higher education.

……….. The new arts standards are designed to help arts educators provide the high-quality curriculum, instruction, and assessment that students need to succeed in today’s schools and tomorrow’s careers.

The new standards incorporate Media Arts in each of the art forms …

And included it as a discreet fifth arts discipline with a separate set of performance standards. For information on the rationale and research behind this decision, see Media Arts position paper & FAQ’s available at

Media Arts are time-related art works. Where this kind of artwork is being produced in our school art programs, it is the Visual Art certified teachers facilitating instruction. Media Arts are rooted in the fundamental principles and concepts of the visual arts; Therefore, NYSATA leadership is exploring the inclusion of Media Arts as a component of NYS Visual Arts standards and curriculum.

The philosophical foundations and lifelong goals establish the basis for the new standards and illuminate artistic literacy by expressing the overarching common values and expectations for learning in arts education across the five arts disciplines. This Foundational work: what we value in arts education, is outlined in the Conceptual Framework at

The new Core Arts Standards are based around 4 non- linear, recursive artistic processes: Creating, Performing/Producing/Presenting, Responding, and Connecting. These processes are common to all 5 arts disciplines.

These processes are articulated in 11 Anchor Standards that are also common across art forms. Anchor Standards are overarching standards statements of what students should know and do in all of the arts as a result of their PreK-12 education. Let’s look at each process & its anchor standards:

The 11 Anchor standards are not necessarily sequential. Numbered merely for coding purposes. 3 in Creating…

In the Visual Arts we are using Presenting as our second Artistic Process (more about this in a minute)

3 in Presenting …

3 in Responding…

And 2 in Connecting.

Artistic Processes & Anchor Standards are parallel across arts disciplines & grade levels. On your handout, I have circled Presenting as the Visual Arts process. I know from our last survey that many were concerned about the new emphasis on Presenting, not wanting to give so much time to it – the writers felt that it was important to get student artwork out in public for many reasons:... This comes back to driving improvements in the system that delivers arts learning.

The Core Arts Standards include two levels of standards: Anchor Standards and Performance Standards. Anchor Standards are overarching standards statements of what students should know and do in all of the arts as a result of their PreK-12 education. A performance standard is a statement of what students should know and be able to do in a particular artistic discipline by the end of a specific grade or level. The performance standards translate the anchor standards into specific, measurable learning goals.

The Visual Arts Standards provide learning progressions from Pre k-12. The H S area of the standards is broken into 3 levels of standards building on the PreK-8 standards in that discipline, and increasing in complexity.

The 2014 Standards provide a variety of materials to support implementation, including Model Cornerstone Assessments. These assessment tools are being piloted in classrooms across the U.S. & will be revised by teachers in future years, eventually generating student work that will be posted on the NCAS website as “benchmarks” to illustrate the expectations of the standards. Teachers may adopt, adapt, or create their own MCAs as appropriate for their particular students and classrooms. MCA’s : Are performance tasks that are completed over time rather than on demand. May be used both as rich learning activities and assessment instruments. Evaluate performance with established rubrics. Provide content for a student’s portfolio so that they graduate with a resume of demonstrated accomplishments, rather than simply a transcript of courses taken.

Enduring Understandings and Essential Questions have been embedded into the standards as a support resource. Many of you will be familiar with “EUs” and “EQs” as ways to map out and organize curriculum. For those of you who aren’t, the intent is to help keep instruction and learning focused on the big ideas of arts learning. EU’s complement the lifelong goals for our student arts learners, and the Essential Questions are those prompts we ask our students to wrestle with when experiencing and making art.

Let’s see if we can tour the website …

In Summary, the new Arts Standards: Seek to instill arts literacy, emphasizing conceptual understanding, which is a departure from the previous emphasis on knowledge and skills. Are designed to guide the delivery of arts education in the classroom with new ways of thinking, learning, and creating. Reflect the actual processes in which artists engage.

As the NCAS were released this summer, the NYS arts professional associations and NYSED created a survey for arts teachers for their feedback concerning the new standards in relation to the New York State Learning Standards for the Arts. Then a Statewide Strategic Plan for the Arts was drafted to guide the development & implementation of new standards. This plan will soon be released for input from a wider range of stakeholders.

This Plan will serve as a planning and implementation guide to support the advancement and adoption of new NYS Arts Learning Standards. The strategic plan begins with mission and vision statements, consists of Four critical components – Standards, Professional Development (in Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment), Materials and Resource Support, and Administrative and Community Support, each augmented by a single goal -- Each goal is supported by a number of objectives, which are achieved by successfully completing both integrated and discrete activities. Critical Component One is Standards and the goal is to adopt new NYS Arts standards. One of the 1 st activities is to survey the field on this Plan. Look for it on the NYSED Arts Page in January.

There are lots of resources to help you examine and learn about the new standards. You can explore standards in custom views on the national arts standards website at Learn about the history and context of the standards by exploring the archives at Or dive deep into the rich resources on the Nat’l websites The new arts standards inspire and support the ways in which art educators keep their teaching fresh and dynamic.