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National Core Arts Standards (NCAS)
Overview
As part of its mission to “Educate, Engage, and Empower each student to succeed in a dynamic world,” DoDEA
conducted a gap analysis of its current standards and curriculum for the Arts Programs. As a result, DoDEA has
decided to proceed with the adoption of the NCAS to become part of DoDEA’s College and Career Ready
Standards.
This school year (SY) 2016-17 is DoDEA’s Awareness Year for the adoption of the NCAS, with intent to fully im-
plement them by SY 2017-18. Adopting the NCAS will provide coherent, cohesive, and connected Fine Arts Pro-
grams that equip students to be college and career ready.
The adoption of NCAS will:
The DoDEA Standards and the NCAS
Align practices and policies that support the arts as essential components of a complete,
holistic curriculum.
Enable DoDEA to utilize content standards with designed measurable assessments that
track individual student achievement.
Facilitate the implementation of the College and Career Ready Literacy and Mathematics
Standards (eventually to include Science and Social Studies Standards) through integrated
curriculum dedicated to cross-purposes including student mastery.
Require DoDEA to standardize the offering of fine arts courses in middle schools as an es-
sential part of providing a cohesive K-12 college and career school system.
Require the purchase of curricula and resources aligned to the NCAS for each of the Fine
Arts Programs.