This year the State of Wyoming did a seven year review of standards and benchmarks for several content areas including Fine and Performing Arts.  During this review some
changes were made to Fine and Performing Art Standards and Benchmarks.  The biggest change was to the benchmarks.  For the first time in Wyoming, there will be separate benchmarks for Visual Arts, Music, Theater, and Dance.

This is a big step forward for Arts Education in the state but there are still some areas for improvement.  Even though each discipline can interpret  each standard (Creative Expression through Production, Aesthetic \Perception, Historical & Cultural Context, Artistic Connection),  I still feel that there needs  to be separate standards not just  benchmarks for each discipline.   Having separate standards will clearly show the uniqueness of each discipline which the current umbrella standards do not.  Yes, the new benchmarks do show the uniqueness of each of the disciplines but if you look closely you will notice that they were trying to fit square pegs into round holes.  To create the new benchmarks for Visual Arts they have compiled hybrids of the old umbrella benchmarks, some unchanged benchmarks and combinations of the National
Standards.

Our music teacher asked me why they don’t just adopt theNational Standards. The greatest reason for that is that they did  not want to get rid of the old umbrella standards structure which causes a mixer of hybrids, unchanged and combination of benchmarks.

I will work with this version of ramped standards and benchmarks but I hope in the next review they will seriously consider having separate standards and benchmarks .