Some learned behavior (such as language/math skills and facts) can be precisely measured. The response is either true or false. But most human behavior involves making choices among legitimate alternatives - such as what TV shows to watch, what to order in a restaurant, what charities to support, what candidate to vote for. These decisions generally don't emerge out of factual true/false, but rather out of personal beliefs about right/wrong, good/bad, fair/unfair, beautiful/ugly, interesting/boring, etc. that are often unrelated to factual information about the issue. The failures we experience in life generally occur because of poor personal, social, and vocational choices and not because of spelling and/or multiplication table deficiencies.

When politicians began to demand that educators create precise assessment programs, the arts were obviously in trouble. As suggested above, the arts are about personal choices that lead to unique creations that demonstrate style and grace, and not about programmed responses that lead to reproducible measurable correctness. Unfortunately, the assessment/standards movement gained momentum because of its appeal to unthinking folks who seek simple solutions to complex problems—and it now pretty much drives the curriculum.

Art programs are expensive and labor-intensive, and so they are also vulnerable on those accounts in a tight economy. Arts educators thus tried to accommodate the assessment movement by developing statements that justify their existence, and by creating standards that could be assessed. But why should the arts have to justify themselves? They've been integral to human life a lot longer than algebra and spelling, which evidently weren't required to justify their curricular existence.