National Standards for Music Education: An Overview

In the realm of education, music plays a vital role in shaping well-rounded individuals. To ensure quality music education, national standards have been developed to guide educators and students alike. This article delves into the national standards for music education, exploring their development, key components, and implementation.

New Standards for the 21st Century

Recognizing the evolving needs of music education, the National Association for Music Education (NAfME) spearheaded the development of new National Core Music Standards in 2014. This initiative involved collaboration with a coalition of national arts, education, and media arts organizations to create comprehensive Core Arts Standards. These updated music standards cater to the specific requirements of teachers and students across various specialized subjects within K-12 music education.

Emphasizing Conceptual Understanding and Artistic Processes

The updated standards place a strong emphasis on conceptual understanding within areas that mirror the actual processes musicians engage in. They aim to cultivate a student's ability to effectively carry out three core artistic processes: creating, performing, and responding.

Creating: This process involves students developing the skills to plan, execute, evaluate, and present their work in an understandable and effective manner. Through creating music, students learn the fundamentals for creating and producing whatever they may imagine.
Performing: Performance encompasses singing, playing instruments, and applying musical skills in various life and career contexts. It includes skills in analysis and interpretation, guiding students through the journey from practice to performance. This process fosters strategic planning skills and dedication to achieving a goal.
Responding: This process encourages students to respond to music, their culture, their community, and their peers. It cultivates critical thinking, analysis, and effective judgment skills.

Connecting Music Education to Broader Skills

The new standards intentionally bridge students' musical achievement with thinking processes and other essential skills. These skills align with Common Core standards and contribute to success in various aspects of life. The knowledge and practice acquired through music education supports students' future learning and development as well-rounded individuals.

Wisconsin Standards for Music: A Detailed Look

The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction's Wisconsin Standards for Music provides a foundational framework that identifies what students should know and be able to do in music. The standards aim to build students’ skills and knowledge through experiential musical activities using the artistic processes of creating, performing, responding, and connecting. These artistic processes and activities aim to provide a foundational set of skills and knowledge for students to make them college and career ready.

The Wisconsin Standards for Music focus on the artistic processes of Create, Perform, Respond, and Connect.

The Wisconsin Standards for Music are organized by grade bands: K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12. This allows for some flexibility in instruction and greater differentiation for the support of students over time. There are four music standards identified for grades kindergarten through 12.

The goal of Wisconsin music education is to introduce the analytical elements and aesthetic expressive qualities of music to all students. The standards aim to build students’ skills and knowledge through experiential musical activities using the artistic processes of creating, performing, responding, and connecting. These artistic processes and activities aim to provide a foundational set of skills and knowledge for students to make them college and career ready.

Standard Strands:

The Wisconsin Standards for Music include two standard strands:

General Music: This strand provides a conceptual base for use in the general music classroom for grades K-12.
Performance Music: This strand provides conceptual-based indicators with objectives for onstage student music experiences.

Development and Revision Process in Wisconsin

The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction employs a transparent and comprehensive process for reviewing and revising academic standards. This process involves gathering ideas from various stakeholders, including music teachers, administrators, parents, business professionals, music industry and service organizations, and leaders from across the state.

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The Music Writing Team initiated their review in April 2017, working throughout the spring and summer. The team considered survey feedback, the existing Wisconsin’s Model Academic Standards for Music Education (1997), and other music standards examples, including the National Core Arts Standards for Music (2014).

The process included public release of a draft with an accompanying survey to gather feedback from the public, key stakeholders, and educators, as well as a series of public hearings. This feedback further informed the writing committee's work. The final draft of the Wisconsin Standards for Music was presented to the SSSRC on September 18, 2017.

This work is made possible through the efforts of a dedicated team of educators, administrators, higher education staff, and music industry professionals. The Wisconsin Standards for Music was shaped by this team’s expertise and generous nature, with the goal of creating a tool that could be used by fellow educators, parents, community members, and the learners in their care, to build skills and knowledge in music.

Implementation and Support

The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (WI DPI) is committed to updating resources to support districts in learning about and implementing the music standards.

As Wisconsin school districts begin to implement the Wisconsin Standards for Music, they are encouraged to consider the overall needs of the students in their care. It is essential that the school community discusses the delivery of the standards through a thoughtful alignment of instruction, learning, and assessment. Other factors to support this work will include planned professional learning to build educator and learner capacity of the key music concepts. The use of collaborative leadership teams provides a solid start in ensuring proper planning and budgeting to support high-quality learning experiences that focus on access for all students. The principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and equitable learning opportunities for all students are a central focus of the team.

Historical Context

In June 2014, the new National Standards were completed. These standards were written by a team of professional music educators and vetted through a two-year inclusive public review process. The individuals involved in writing the 2014 Standards possessed more than 1,800 years of experience teaching PreK-12 music, encompassing various areas such as general music, ensembles, technology integration, and theory/composition. Furthermore, the standards writing teams consulted with expert Research Advisers for input based on current pedagogical research.

Key Features of the National Core Music Standards

The National Core Music Standards are designed to guide music educators in helping their students achieve independent music literacy. These standards emphasize conceptual understanding and are organized around the artistic processes of creating, performing, and responding.

Common Anchors:

Similarities across the arts disciplines are highlighted in the eleven Common Anchors, which are shared by all five sets of discipline-specific standards.

Model Cornerstone Assessments:

Draft Model Cornerstone Assessments provide protocols to help music educators develop measures of student achievement. These assessments are currently undergoing revision.

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