Michael Blakeslee


Lynn Tuttle

Reauthorization of ESEA and the National Core Arts Standards

Posted by Michael Blakeslee, Lynn Tuttle, Sep 16, 2015 0 comments


Michael Blakeslee


Lynn Tuttle

How does the Reauthorization of ESEA connect to the 2014 National Core Arts Standards?

The Senate “Every Child Achieves Act” version of ESEA contains language which is supportive of the intent and the content of the National Core Arts Standards.

1. The Senate bill includes a listing of core academic subjects which funding in the bill can support, including Title I, the largest allocation of education funding at the federal level. The arts and music are listed as core academic subjects in the Senate version of the bill, allowing federal funds to support learning in all the arts (see page 549).

2. The Senate bill includes language which is supportive of states creating rigorous academic content standards in all (core) academic subjects, including the arts and music. The National Core Arts Standards were written with that intent in mind – that states would utilize the new national, voluntary arts education standards to create standards of their own. This is already occurring throughout our nation, with Nebraska, Kentucky, New Hampshire and Arizona having already created new state standards and/or competencies based in part on the national, voluntary ones. Oregon, and Montana, among others, are currently in the process of revising their state arts standards, utilizing the National Core Arts Standards as an important source for that work.

The House bill, the “Student Success Act,” while not creating a definition of core academic subjects, also encourages states to create their own sets of standards. Again, the National Core Arts Standards were written as a set of standards that the field agreed upon – not a required set of standards, but language by which states could create standards meeting their local needs.

What proposed changes to the federal law may prove a barrier to the National Core Arts Standards?

While the journey to reauthorization has just begun, both the House and Senate bills call for a smaller federal footprint in public education, leaving more decisions up to the state and local level. It is possible that a national set of standards might appear to run counter to this intent to move the education conversation from the national to the state/local level. As noted above, however, the National Coalition for Core Arts Standards, the group which created the new, national standards, is encouraging states to make the standards their own, meeting their own local needs. In the same way, local school districts and arts educators can utilize the national standards, and adapt them to fit the needs of their community and their school (so long as that’s OK with their school administration!).

Finally, as happened in the decade following the release of the first voluntary National Arts Standards in 1994, many teachers across the nation are already using the standards and the many supplementary materials provided by the National Art Education Association, the Educational Theatre Association, the National Dance Education Organization, and our association, the National Association for Music Education to inform and improve their own teaching practice, all to the benefit of American students. 

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