Connecticut Common Music Assessments

Abstract

Connecticut’s Common Music Assessment initiative positively impacted music education and, more broadly, arts education. This seven-year project culminated a series of Connecticut State Department of Education initiatives structured around the artistic process model. Teachers from Connecticut and other states formed professional learning communities (PLCs) to create, pilot, and refine standards-based units with embedded performance assessment and benchmarked student work addressing singing, composition, and improvisation. Key elements included an emphasis on student self-assessment and the power of PLCs centered on the examination of student work. These units were adopted or adapted by teachers across the United States and internationally. The initiative fostered a generation of curriculum and assessment leaders, and informed the development of the National Core Arts Standards and Model Cornerstone Assessments (MCAs). The MeasureSuccess.org site developed to facilitate this project and MCA piloting provides a platform for PLCs to engage in transformative processes such as benchmarking, standard-setting, and calibration and to disseminate units/tasks.