National standards for student achievement have been developed in the arts in a process that paralleled the standards discussions being held in mathematics, language arts, science, history, and other areas. The standards process, while demanding, has generated important discussion and debate about which art forms, what kind of knowledge, and what skills in the arts are important for all students. The National Assessment Governing Board--with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, an independent federal agency, in collaboration with the Getty Center for Education in the Arts, a program of the J. Paul Getty Trust--commissioned the development of this framework for a planned national assessment of student performance in the arts in 1997. The present document, the framework, sets out for the educational community and the public the scope of what will be included and how the arts will be assessed. The process for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Arts Education Framework is founded on a vision of a society that believes the arts are essential to every child's complete development. Throughout their lives, they will draw from artistic experience and knowledge as a means of understanding what happens both inside and outside their own skin, just as they use mathematical, scientific, historical, and other frameworks for understanding. The expectation is that they will experience enough of the discipline, challenge, and joy of creating in different art forms to intimately understand the human significance of dance, music, theatre, and the visual arts. The framework is broken down into four chapters: (1) The Arts in U.S. Education; (2) The Content and Processes of the Arts; (3) Desired Attributes of the Assessment; and (4) Preliminary Achievement Level Descriptions. [For the "2016 Abridged Arts Framework," see ED604373.]