Arts Education Leadership Initiative Self-Assessment Tool

© 2001 National Assembly of State Arts Agencies. All rights reserved.

Welcome to the NASAA Arts Education (AE) Manager Self-Assessment Tool. This tool is the result of more than four years of work by a team of AE managers, advising staff of NASAA and the National Endowment for the Arts and consultants. See Acknowledgements, below, for a list of these persons.

Directions for Using the Tool

The tool includes 13 domains with over 80 separate dimensions clustered under the domains, in order to ensure a fully-dimensional portrait of AE managers' knowledge in key areas.

The Self-Assessment Tool is in HTML format so that it may be read and completed via a Web browser such as Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator.

Please note: Difficulties completing the form using Netscape 6 have been detected. If you do not have access to an earlier version of Netscape, or Internet Explorer, please fill out the form by hand and mail it to Michael Sikes. Narrative responses may be sent to him as an email attachment (see the bottom of the Help Menu for his mailing and email addresses).

The tool has several types of fields. The most common is the 4-point scale:

1 I am aware that non-profit organizations are different from for-profit companies.
2 I can identify several important similarities and differences between the non-profit, for-profit, and independent sectors.
3 I fully understand the nature of non-profit development and governance, including 501(c)(3) status, techniques of board development, and the constraints of non-profits in competing and cooperating with for-profits.
4 Using my understanding of the non-profit sector, I work with a variety of stakeholder organizations, helping them to develop dynamic, committed boards; achieve organizational stability; and position them for long-term sustainability.

Using this type of scale, select the descriptor that best describes your knowledge and click the button next to it. (Try it now.) Notice that you can select only one button, so choose the highest number that applies to you. This is because each higher number presumes mastery of the skills in the numbers below it.

Another kind of field includes several columns in which you can select buttons:

Yourself Your ED Your Agency
Not very
Somewhat
Fairly
Very

Notice that with this scale, you can select one button in each column.

A third kind of field is for text:


You may type directly into this field, or—as suggested below—type into a word processor and then copy and paste into the field.

Helpful Hints

  • Print out the entire form and take at least a week to review the various domains. Enter your ratings in pencil, review them, then use them as a reference when you go on to complete the form online.
  • Once you've begun completing the form online, continue until you are done. There is no way to save your work and resume. Thus you should allow sufficient time to complete it without stopping—at least one hour.
  • You can type out your longer written answers for the text fields in a word processor and simply copy and paste into the respective form fields when you are ready.
  • Please remember to complete the entire form before submitting. When finished, check your responses, then click the "submit" button. The results will be emailed to consultant Michael Sikes, who will tabulate the overall results for NASAA. Individual results will not be recorded. If you want to save your individual ratings, print the form before submitting.
  • If you need help, click Help Menu

Complementary References

A Community Audit for Arts Education: Better Schools, Better Skills, Better Communities, The Kennedy Center Alliance for Arts Education Network

Bloom's Taxonomy

Click here to begin using the tool

Acknowledgements

NASAA acknowledges the generous support of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation in the development of this assessment tool and other interventions on behalf of arts education as part of the Arts Education Leadership Network Initiative and the pioneering support of the National Endowment for the Arts, which consistently makes professional development of state arts education managers a priority. In addition, the following individuals have gone above and beyond to help make this resource a reality:

Leadership and Management Task Force, Other Advisors


John Benjamin, Arts in Education Director & Theatre Specialist, Kentucky Arts Council
Josie Bright-Stone, Education Program Director, South Carolina Arts Commission
Mary Campbell-Zopf, Arts Education Program Director, Ohio Arts Council
Martha Newman Collins, Arts in Education Coordinator and 504/ADA Coordinator, West Virginia Commission on the Arts
Deborah Dobbins, Administrator of Arts Ed/Performing Arts, Texas Commission on the Arts
Mary Liniger Hickman, Arts in Education Consultant, DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities
Jean Irwin, Arts in Education Coordinator, Utah Arts Council
David Marshall, Senior Program Manager, Connecticut Commission on the Arts
Sally MacDonald Sand, Former Arts in Education Program Associate, Minnesota Arts Board (served on task force 1999-2000)
Elain Zinn, Arts in Education Coordinator, State Foundation on Culture and the Arts (Hawaii)

National Staff


Johanna Boyer, Director of Leadership Development, National Assembly of State Arts Agencies
Nancy Daugherty, Arts Education Specialist, National Endowment for the Arts
Sharon Gee, Meeting and Events Manager, National Assembly of State Arts Agencies
Jill Hauser, Publications and Web Manager, National Assembly of State Arts Agencies
Doug Herbert, Director, Arts Education, National Endowment for the Arts
Jonathan Katz, CEO, National Assembly of State Arts Agencies
Beth Rather, Member Services Associate, National Assembly of State Arts Agencies (1999-2000)

Consultants

NASAA acknowledges the special role consultants have played in substantiating this tool and its professional development context. Thanks to:

Michael Sikes for shaping and revising this assessment tool

Dawn M. Ellis for facilitating the advisory groups and content development of the tool as part of the leadership initiative

David O'Fallon for early assistance as an outside eye

Craig Dreezsen for evaluation of the leadership initiative

For a more complete context on this work, refer to the July 2001 NASAA Arts Education Administration and Management Initiative Task Force Report.

Let us know what you think of this resource and how it could be used in the future.

Contacts

Craig Dreezsen, Evaluator
Johanna Misey Boyer, NASAA
Dawn M. Ellis, Consultant, Arts Education Leadership Network Initiative
Michael Sikes, Consultant
All of the above

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