Standards: The Kiss of Death

What would you like to see your student accomplish in art by the time they finish middle school? According to the ODE, your incoming high school freshman should have just under 20 things under their belt, including the ability to “Research culturally or historically significant works of art and discuss their roles in society, history, culture or politics”, “Achieve artistic purpose and communicate intent by selection and use of appropriate media”, “Apply the strategies of art criticism to describe, analyze and interpret selected works of art”, “Demonstrate aesthetic inquiry and reflection skills when participating in discussions about the nature and value of art”, and “Use words and images to explain the role of visual art in community and cultural traditions and events.” Of course, I did pick what I say as some of the most outrageous of the demands to list, but I think get the point.
When you look what the ODE cites as the “purpose” of these standards, we see those four little words that hit like a punch in the stomach to most teachers nowadays, No Child Left Behind. The more I read of the standards the more it frustrates me, it takes about how these are guidelines and as long as we teach them we can teach them anyway we want, and then we come to the paragraph, so neatly tucked away you might even skip it if you were just skimming through: assessment. Because this IS standards based curriculum, we must have assessment, otherwise how do we know we met our standards. Finally tucked away at the end of the paragraph is a sentence that truly makes my blood boil, “Continuously analyzing an arts program through ongoing assessment will help teachers and school decision makers determine a program's effectiveness and will help communities realize the value and importance of fine arts programs”. This is what the standards really are, a way to figure out when we it is the optimal time to cuts the arts programs from schools.