User:Lorainethompson/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Art education in the United States

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I am an art education major, so knowing the roots of art education in the United States is imperative to my crafting the best possible teaching philosophy to one day use in the classroom.

Evaluate the article
(Compose a detailed evaluation of the article here, considering each of the key aspects listed above. Consider the guiding questions, and check out the examples of what a useful Wikipedia article evaluation looks like.)

Overall, the article is decent in summarizing the lengthy history of art education in the United States.

The lead section could use some improvement. For example, there are multiple points that do not have citation and are not referenced in the article again. For example, the loss of focus on art in the classroom is attributed to budget cuts and "increasing test-based assessments of children which the... No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act requires." The follow up sentence claims that the NCLB does not require the reporting of instruction time for arts education content, "which is reason often cited for the decline or possible decline of arts education in American public schools." This point does not have any citations attached to it and is not elaborated on anywhere in the rest of the Wikipedia page.

As for content, the page is decent. It does not include any information on the Industrial Revolution's impact on art education (architecture being a combination of mathematic and visual skills). It also does not include a section on current art education, which would be a much more appropriate placement of the information about the No Child Left Behind act, given it is credible. Some of the information is lengthy, but perhaps necessary upon further research.

The article succeeds in tone and balance; all sections of the page are pretty equal in size, and all information is given with factual certainty.

The sources and references given do seem to be solid, except for a few points that lack citation.

The organization of the article is not terrible but could be slightly tweaked. The main timeline is the "Picture study movement, before 1930," "Since World War II," and "Discipline-based art education in the early 1980s." There is no section for current art education. I feel as though the "Since World War II" section could be broken down into smaller portions. Some of the information is lengthy.

There is only one photo of an art class in the 1930s. I feel as if more photos could be included.The talk page is not very long, but has important additions. One individual suggested the addition of important contributors to art education literary works in the resources section, but those contributors are not discussed in the article at all.

Overall, the article is good for giving a person a very basic understanding of art education in the US, but could be significantly improved in organization and quality of information.