659250

research-article2016

JRMXXX10.1177/0022429416659250Journal of Research in Music EducationRicherme

Original Research Article

Measuring Music Education:

A Philosophical Investigation
of the Model Cornerstone
Assessments

Journal of Research in Music Education

2016, Vol. 64(3) 274293
National Association for
Music Education 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/0022429416659250
jrme.sagepub.com

Lauren Kapalka Richerme1

Abstract
Despite substantial attention to measurement and assessment in contemporary
education and music education policy and practice, the process of measurement has
gone largely undiscussed in music education philosophy. Using the work of physicist
and philosopher Karen Barad, in this philosophical inquiry, I investigated the nature
of measurement in music education while concurrently exploring the assumptions
underlying documents related to the proposed music Model Cornerstone Assessments.
First, Barads concepts of reflection and diffraction reveal the false assumption that
measurement captures rather than alters and produces musical experiences. Second,
measurement apparatuses are explained as boundary-making practices. Third, the
limits of measurement apparatuses are explored through Barads assertions about
experimental inclusions and exclusions and Lyotards concept of the differend,
and these limits are used to problematize the ambitious, value-laden discourse of
documents related to the music Model Cornerstone Assessments. Finally, through
Barads concept of intra-action, measurement is reinterpreted as a process through
which teacher and student emerge. Music education policymakers, teachers, and
students might adopt language emphasizing the intra-active nature of measurement
and empower themselves to critique and reimagine existing measurement apparatuses
and their measurement and assessment practices.
Keywords
measurement, assessment, philosophy, policy, music education

1Indiana

University Jacobs School of Music, Bloomington, IN, USA

Corresponding Author:
Lauren Kapalka Richerme, Music Education Department, Indiana University Jacobs School of Music,
1201 E 3rd St., Bloomington, IN 47405, USA.
Email: lkricher@indiana.edu

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Contemporary education policies in North America and beyond are entrenched in the
language of measurement and assessment (e.g., Darling-Hammond, Amrein-Beardsley,
Haertel, & Rothstein, 2012; Horsley, 2014; Perrine, 2013). In the United States, while
individual states began taking action toward educational accountability in the 1960s
and 1970s (Mehta, 2013), the advent of the No Child Left Behind Act (2002) unified
assessment collecting and reporting procedures. More recently, in order for states to
receive a waiver granting flexibility from the requirements set by No Child Left
Behind, policymakers must adopt annual, statewide, aligned, high-quality assessments and include student growth as a significant factor in teacher evaluations
(U.S. Department of Education, 2012, p. 1). As a result of this policy and programs
such as Race to the Top (American Recovery and Reinvestment, 2009), the majority
of states have adopted the Common Core State Standards, which enable the development and implementation of common comprehensive assessment systems to measure
student performance annually that will replace existing state testing systems
(Common Core, 2015, p. 2). While states such as Indiana and Oklahoma have withdrawn from the Common Core State Standards, policymakers have replaced them with
their own statewide standards and assessments. Despite growing parental opposition
to student testing (e.g., OConner, 2014; Sanchez, 2015), large-scale student assessment will likely form an integral part of American education policies for the foreseeable future.
The language of measurement and assessment has also permeated music education discourse and action (e.g., Arostegui, 2003; Scott, 2012; Shuler, 2012;
Wesolowski, 2012). Drawing inspiration from the Common Core State Standards,
music educators authoring the 2014 National Core Arts Standards conceived of
these standards in integration with new Model Cornerstone Assessments (State
Education Agency Directors of Arts Education, 2014). The authors of the current
in-progress drafts of the Model Cornerstone Assessments intend them to provide
formative and summative means to measure student achievement of performance
standards in the National Core Music Standards (National Association for Music
Education, 2015a, p. 1). The writers of documents associated with drafts of the
Model Cornerstone Assessments note the assessments voluntary nature, and thus
they serve as suggestions rather than as policy mandates. However, the authors of
the Conceptual Framework for the National Core Arts Standards express hope that
these assessments will focus the great majority of classroom- and district-level
assessments around rich performance tasks that demand transfer (State Education
Agency Directors of Arts Education, 2014, p. 16).1 The music Model Cornerstone
Assessments website indicates the current pilot testing of the creating, performing,
and responding assessments for ensembles and for grades two, five, and eight of the
proficient, accomplished, and advanced assessments for technology and composition-theory and of the proficient assessment for guitar/keyboard/harmonizing
instruments (National Association for Music Education, 2016). Despite substantial
attention to measurement and assessment in contemporary education and music education policy and practice, the process of measurement has gone largely undiscussed
in music education philosophy.

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Music education does not always necessitate formal measurements and assessments. Indeed, music teaching and learning frequently occur through an apprenticeship model that utilizes hands-on training and informal assessment. This philosophical
inquiry focuses on contemporary American school-based K12 music education and
rests on the premise that the current political climate necessitates some amount of
student measurement and assessment.
Philosophical inquiries investigate specifically philosophical questions, including
those related to ontology or the nature of being (Jorgensen, 1992). Through such
examinations, philosophers question assumptions underlying thinking and practice
(Bowman, 1998; Froehlich & Frierson-Campbell, 2012; Phelps, Ferrara, & Goolsby,
1993). The purpose of this philosophical inquiry is to investigate the nature of measurement in music education while concurrently exploring the assumptions underlying
documents related to the proposed music Model Cornerstone Assessments. These
assessments, which necessitate the process of measurement, were chosen because of
their potentially wide-reaching implications, but the issues and questions raised in this
inquiry could apply to other measurements and assessments.2

Theoretical Framework
This investigation draws on the work of Karen Barad, a contemporary philosopher
who also holds a degree in theoretical particle physics. Her most cited work, Meeting
the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and
Meaning (Barad, 2007), has received marked attention from writers in fields ranging
from media studies (e.g., Deuze, 2012) to economics (e.g., Orlikowski, 2015) to education philosophy (e.g., Fenwick & Edwards, 2010; Taguchi, 2010; Wegerif, 2013).
Since the current emphasis on measurement in education relies on a worldview that
foregrounds scientific verification, Barads physics background allows her to provide
a unique philosophical perspective on the process and implications of measurement.
Although measurement within a scientific laboratory clearly looks different than
measurement within educational settings, the same general set of procedures governs
both practices. Writing about measurement in education and psychology, Thorndike
and Thorndike-Christ (2010) explain:
Measurement in any field involves three common steps: (1) identifying and defining the
quality or the attribute that is to be measured, (2) determining the set of operations by
which the attribute may be isolated and displayed for observation, and (3) establishing a
set of procedures or definitions for translating our observations into quantitative
statements of degree or amount. (p. 10)

These steps occur regardless of whether one is measuring qualities of a particle in

a physics experiment or aspects of student learning in a music classroom; while the
what may change, the overarching how does not. Thus, Barads writings about
measuring quantum phenomena can inform music educators understandings of their
own measurement practices.

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Measurement is distinct from assessment. Consistent with Thorndike and

Thorndike-Christ (2010), Payne (2003) explains that in education, Measurement is
concerned with the systematic collection, quantification, and ordering of information.
It implies both the process or quantification, and the result (p. 7). In contrast, educational assessment is the interpretive integration of application tasks (procedures) to
collect objectives-relevant information for educational decision making and communication about the impact of the teaching-learning process (Payne, 2003, p. 9). In
other words, measurement involves gathering data and assigning numbers to qualities
such as attributes or behaviors, while assessment encompasses making inferences and
value judgments about the collected information (e.g., Miller, Linn, & Gronlund,
2009; Reynolds, Livingston, & Willson, 2009). Put simply, Assessment =
Measurement + Evaluation (Payne, 2003, p. 9).
Measurement is central to the Model Cornerstone Assessments. Authors of related
documents explain that they aimed to develop common tools to measure student
learning (Common Arts Assessment Initiative, 2014, p. 1) and that the Model
Cornerstone Assessments would show how student learning can be measured
through rich performance tasks (State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education,
2014, p. 8). The term measure also appears in all current versions of the Model
Cornerstone Assessments; each of the 23 assessment drafts begins with the opening
line Model Cornerstone Assessments (MCAs) in music are tasks that provide formative and summative means to measure student achievement of performance standards
in the National Core Music Standards (e.g., National Association for Music
Education, 2015a, p. 2; 2015c, p. 2).3 While the Model Cornerstone Assessments
ultimately enable teachers to assess students by interpreting and communicating
the information they collect, their authors, in alignment with definitions in education
literature, indicate that the process of measurement serves as a necessary precursor to
such action.
Because Barads (2007) interest lies in the ways in which individual scientists
engage with quantum phenomena, she writes almost exclusively about the process
of measurement rather than about how the experimenter or wider scientific community assesses those measurements. Yet, since Barads larger philosophical project involves drawing on contemporary scientific measurement practices to
reconceptualize existence, applying her writings to practices beyond measurement
is consistent with her work. As such, this philosophical inquiry focuses on the
process of measurement while at times extending Barads ideas to aspects of
assessment.
First, in this philosophical inquiry I explore Barads (2007) concepts of reflection
and diffraction and use them as a framework through which to analyze documents
related to the Model Cornerstone Assessments. Second, I explain Barads writings
about measurement apparatuses and apply them to the Model Cornerstone Assessments.
Third, I investigate the limits of measurement apparatuses. Fourth, I examine the relationship between teacher and student in the measurement process using Barads concept of intra-action. Finally, I posit four suggestions for music education policy and
practice.

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Reflection and Diffraction

Barad (2007) draws on aspects of the physics phenomena of reflection and diffraction
to distinguish between reflective and diffractive methodologies. She explains that
reflection involves mirror images, writing, To mirror something is to provide an
accurate image or representation that faithfully copies that which is being mirrored
(p. 86). In reflection, objects are held at a distance, and a clear boundary exists
between observer and object. Researchers relying on a reflective methodology consider themselves and their measurements independent from the phenomena under
their investigation. In contrast, diffractive patterns necessitate marking differences
from within and as part of an entangled state (p. 89). In diffraction, observer and
object are not fixed but emerging and contingent on each other.4 Researchers relying
on a diffractive methodology consider themselves part of and evolving in integration
with the phenomena they measure.
Writers of documents associated with the music Model Cornerstone Assessments
imply that those adopting the assessments will use a reflective rather than a diffractive
methodology. For example, authors state that teachers can use the pilot and final versions of the assessments to monitor and improve student learning in the arts
(Common Arts Assessment Initiative, 2014, p. 1). Similarly, the writers of the
Conceptual Framework that accompanies the National Core Arts Standards assert that
teachers can capture student work based on the model cornerstone assessments
(State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education, 2014, p. 6). Words like monitor
and capture insinuate a distanced observer distinct from students and their work. Just
as one can monitor a room from a hidden camera or capture a candid photograph, these
authors imply that a teacher can measure student growth without altering students
learning processes or musical experiences.
Barad (2007) explains the false assumptions underlying reflective methodologies,
writing, Scientific practices may more adequately be understood as a matter of intervening rather than representing (p. 54). By isolating certain qualities and quantities,
quantum physics experiments do not just represent existing conditions, they change
the phenomena under investigation. This does not mean that measurement is not reproducible; reproducibility results from adherence to specific procedures of measurement
(Barad, 2007). In other words, scientists control their experimental conditions so that
they intervene with phenomena in the same manner each time, thus allowing them to
replicate findings.
Through the act of measuring, scientists and music educators alike alter the
phenomena under investigation. Take, for example, the part of the second-grade
creating Model Cornerstone Assessment that involves improvising two four-beat
long rhythmic answers to a teachers rhythmic prompts (National Association for
Music Education, 2015a). During the task, the teacher measures student learning and
then assesses it with a rubric, and the students fill out a self-assessment sheet, which
includes statements such as I kept a steady beat and My answers were expressive
followed by the choices of yes with a smiling face, no with a frowning face, and sometimes with a neutral face (National Association for Music Education, 2015a, p. 7).

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Consider how a group of second graders might respond in the following three
scenarios: The students improvise without the teacher using the Model Cornerstone
Assessment; the teacher explains the Model Cornerstone Assessment and then the students improvise; the students improvise and then the teacher explains that he or she
just measured and assessed their improvisations using the Model Cornerstone
Assessment.5 Would a student in each context have a different musical experience? If
so, why?
In all three scenarios, decisions the teacher makes regarding content and pedagogy
will affect students experiences. For instance, while the second-grade students improvise, the music educator may focus their attention on specific musical concepts or on
other aspects of the experience, such as their emotions or bodies. These decisions
affect students immediate musical experiences as well as their future musical engagements; students who practice using dynamics while improvising will likely attend to
that musical quality differently in subsequent music performing, listening, and creating experiences. Yet, in the first and third scenarios, when students do not anticipate
that the teacher will measure their improvisations, the quality and intensity of students
attention and their accompanying emotions will likely contrast those of students made
aware of forthcoming measurements.
In the second scenario, in which, as suggested in the assessments instructions, the
teacher makes the students aware of the measurement before the improvisation, the
students approach the musical endeavor with the prospect of measurement. Secondgrade students who know that they and their teacher will determine to what extent they
have kept a steady beat have more reason to focus their full attention on that quality
than those who do not anticipate that a teacher will measure their improvisations. In
other words, students respond differently to the direction keep a steady beat than to
the statement Im going to measure the steadiness of your beat. Additionally, students may experience nervousness, excitement, or other feelings before, during, and
after the measurement. While any musical experience can arouse such emotions, the
process of measurement has the potential to alter the type, quality, and strength of
students emotional experiences.
Students may also change when teachers share their assessment of the measured
performance with them.6 Such action can affect how students in this scenario remember the musical experience. For example, imagine a student who circled the yes and
smiling face next to the statement I kept a steady beat only to have the teacher indicate that he or she did not keep a steady beat. The student, who may have felt happy
after the initial musical experience, may now look back on the event with sadness.
Similarly, in the third scenario, in which the teacher makes the students aware of the
measurement only after the musical experience, while the students will not feel the
embodied-emotional reactions or cognitive intensification associated with an impending measurement, their perceptions of and feelings about the musical experience will
likely change as they reflect on their actions and receive input from their teacher. In
short, the prospect of measurement can affect ones anticipation of a musical experience, the process of measurement can affect ones engagement during a musical experience, and the results of past measurements can affect ones memories of a musical

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experience. While an individual students reactions to any form of measurement

depend on a variety of factors, ranging from prior experiences to the current classroom
environment to his or her general disposition, these scenarios reveal that measurement
does not just monitor or capture students music-making and learning but fundamentally changes it.
Because students cannot undo the alterations resulting from their learning being
measured and assessed, those processes will affect their future musical engagements.
In other words, experiencing measurement and assessment contributes to ones changing musical self. Imagine that the teacher in the second and third aforementioned scenarios then repeats the improvisation exercise without any measurement. Since the
students have practiced intensely focusing their attention on the musical elements
named in the measurement and assessment processes, such practices will influence
their subsequent musical endeavors. For example, a student who circled the no and
frowning face next to the statement I used interesting rhythms cannot help but bring
that information to subsequent musical endeavors.
Measurement and assessment do not just change existing experiences, they constitute ones evolving experiences. Randall Allsup (2015) writes, We are more than the
music we make; we are simultaneously made and remade by the music we make
(p. 8). The experience of hearing a specific genre of music or undertaking a certain
musical practice contributes to ones evolving musical self and interfaces with all
future musical endeavors. Likewise, while students are more than measurement
results, they are made and remade by measurements and assessments.
Although measurements and assessments can leave students upset or unmotivated,
they can also positively impact their musical development. Students who intensely
direct their attention toward keeping a study beat or the complexity of their rhythmic
improvisations can build on those experiences in their future musical endeavors. In
addition to propagating false assumptions about the nature of measurement, language
that neglects the role of measurement and subsequently assessment in producing an
individuals continually changing musical experiences may cause teachers and students
to miss the potentially beneficial ways in which these processes can enhance learning.
If measurement in part constitutes students changing musical and educational experiences and selves, then measurement apparatuses deserve significant attention.

Measurement Apparatuses
The act of measuring necessitates a specific measurement apparatus that forms boundaries in order to function. Barad (2007) explains, Apparatuses are not mere observing
instruments but boundary-drawing practicesspecific material (re)configurations of
the worldwhich come to matter (p. 140). This statement has two important implications. First, the boundaries drawn by measurement apparatuses do not preexist those
apparatuses. For example, the authors of the music Model Cornerstone Assessments
create boundaries between the practices of creating, performing, and responding as well as between types of musical engagement such as ensembles, composition-theory, technology, and guitar/keyboard/harmonizing instruments (National

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Association for Music Education, 2016). Within each measurement apparatus,7 the
authors distinguish further boundaries between qualities such as expressive and
formal, thus demarcating limits between concepts associated with those labels (e.g.,
National Association for Music Education, 2015b, p. 7). The boundaries between and
within these practices are not inevitable or universal but temporary configurations
determined by the apparatuses creators. Likewise, teachers and students adapting the
Model Cornerstone Assessments to meet their local needs inevitably draw new boundaries between musical practices and qualities.
Second, boundaries are practices that those using measurement apparatuses sustain and reinforce. When second-grade students measure and assess their learning by
filling out the self-assessment sheets following their rhythmic improvisations, they
reproduce the boundaries between the musical concepts enumerated on their sheets.
The boundaries between musical concepts and practices exist in and through the act of
making informal and formal measurements. Teachers also produce boundaries through
practices beyond measurement and assessment; actions such as selecting content and
emphasizing and labeling certain terms all contribute to divides between different
types of musical practices and concepts as well as between school musical practices
and music-making taking place elsewhere in society. These boundary-producing practices exist in integration with those created and reinforced through measurement and
assessment procedures.
It is important to note that measurement need not involve a physical apparatus
beyond the human body. Just as scientists can use their eyes to approximate quantities
such as distances and speeds, music educators can use their ears to measure various
musical qualities. For example, a teacher can measure and assess a students tone by
listening and comparing the sound to memories of prior musical experiences without
using a written rubric. Yet, when codified measurement apparatuses do exist, their
repeated use can affect how people understand the qualities named within them.
Barad (2007) contrasts physicist Werner Heisenbergs position that quantities in
quantum systems such as position and momentum exist in the world waiting to be
measured with physicist Niels Bohrs assertion that quantities emerge through measurement, noting that Heisenberg eventually agreed with Bohr. According to Bohr,
concepts are idealizations or abstractions that lack determinant meanings absent
the appropriate experimental arrangements (p. 296). A particle does not exist in a
single position waiting to be measured; rather, it exists in multiple positions simultaneously. The practice of measurement forces the particle into a single, identifiable
position.
Likewise, the aspects of music-making named in a given measurement apparatus
are not waiting to be measured; they only come into existence through measurement
practices. For instance, through their measurements, those choosing to utilize the creating Model Cornerstone Assessments produce the practice of creating. In fifth
grade, creating might be notating or recording music for a specific purpose or context while using at least three of the musical elements named in the assessment instructions (National Association for Music Education, 2015b), and in eighth grade,
creating might be making music with a beginning, middle, and end for a short video

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(National Association for Music Education, 2015c). If the majority of music educators
in a given district or state decide to use and reuse these assessments, these practices
will come to constitute musical creating in those locations. Likewise, any repeated
assessmentbe it an adaptation of a Model Cornerstone Assessment or an assessment
formulated from scratchhas the potential to constitute a specific musical practice.
Additionally, while fifth- and eighth-grade students could take the aforementioned
tasks in a number of directions, the associated measurement apparatuses ultimately
inform how they will engage with them. Both the fifth-grade and eighth-grade assessments final scoring rubrics rate students musical creations on expressive intent and
craftsmanship (National Association for Music Education, 2015b, p. 14; 2015c,
p. 10). For the teachers and students using these measurement apparatuses to make
assessments, these qualities will contribute to understandings of creating as well as
distinguish high-quality musical creating from that of lesser quality. Such perceptions are not inevitable; they exist through the repeated boundary-making practices
necessitated by specific measurement apparatuses as well as through decisions, ranging from selecting content to determining pedagogy to connecting with music makers
outside of the classroom, that function in integration with measurement and assessment. A measurement apparatus does not just capture preexisting musical practices, it
produces musical practices.
Given the important role of measurement apparatuses, the authors of the Model
Cornerstone Assessments deserve credit for not simply preserving past boundaries.
For example, the authors of the current drafts of the Model Cornerstone Assessments
ask music technology students to construct their own message or interpretation while
arranging a cover song of their choice (National Association for Music Education,
2015e). Such tasks contrast those teachers might create in conjunction with the 1994
National Music Standards. Yet, no matter how innovative, educational measurement
apparatuses become problematic if teachers do not continually adapt them to their
individual circumstances.
While the authors of a recently added statement on the music Model Cornerstone
Assessments webpage assert that the Model Cornerstone Assessments provide adaptable assessment tasks (National Association for Music Education, 2016), the authors
of the Conceptual Framework for the National Core Arts Standards simultaneously
assert their variability and universality, writing, These tasks are intended to serve as
models to guide the development of local assessments and as such, will eventually be
benchmarked with student work and available on the NCCAS website (State
Education Agency Directors of Arts Education, 2014, p. 9). Additionally, the
Conceptual Framework authors state that the online repository for student work will
utilize the labels near standard, at standard, and above standard (State Education
Agency Directors of Arts Education, 2014, p. 6). Despite these authors acknowledgment of possible local variations, the prospect of nationwide labels for student work
may encourage educators teaching in diverse situations to adopt the same measurement apparatuses and make comparisons across school, district, and state lines.8 While
music educators might benefit from freely available choices of rigorous, adaptable
assessments and accompanying examples of student work, such action becomes

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problematic if music educators and students confine themselves to specific measurement apparatuses, thus placing limits on their possible musical understandings, practices, and experiences.

The Limits of Measurement Apparatuses

By bounding concepts and practices, measurement apparatuses determine inclusions
and exclusions. Barad (2007) writes, Given a particular measuring apparatus, certain
properties become determinate, while others are specifically excluded. Which properties become determinate is not governed by the desires or will of the experimenter but
rather by the specificity of the experimental apparatus (p. 19). For example, through
the Uncertainty Principle, Heisenberg demonstrated that one can measure either a particles position or momentum but not both simultaneously; the incompatibility of the
measurement apparatuses needed for each quantity limit a scientist to making one
measurement or the other.
Although different apparatuses will determine and ultimately create different quantities, none can determine all of them at once (Barad, 2007). While the proposed Model
Cornerstone Assessments name a wide range of musical qualities and practices, some
potential musical information will always cease to exist in any measurement endeavor.
For example, without alteration, the eighth-grade creating assessment task does not
allow students to express themselves through music without a clear beginning, middle,
or end or to engage with musical material in ways that a teacher may not consider
expressive. Likewise, the scoring rubrics for the creating Model Cornerstone
Assessments inevitably exclude or minimize other potentially meaningful aspects of
what someone not entrenched in these measuring apparatuses language might call
creating. Measuring creating with an apparatus highlighting virtual audiences
reactions to students cross-genre improvisations would produce markedly different
conceptions of creating than those fostered by the current drafts of the Model
Cornerstone Assessments.
More problematically, writers of materials related to the Model Cornerstone
Assessments include value-laden terminology that implies uniformity among those
interfacing with the measurement apparatuses. For instance, authors of the Conceptual
Framework for the National Core Arts Standards explain that the Model Cornerstone
Assessments are intended to engage students in applying knowledge and skills in
authentic and relevant contexts (State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education,
2014, p. 16). Such language assumes that all teachers and students will agree on what
constitutes authentic and relevant. Yet, teachers and students prior experiences,
current environments, and future aims interface with what each individual currently
terms authentic and relevant.9
Such situations create an instance of what philosopher Jean-Franois Lyotard
(1983/1988) terms the differend. He explains:
The differend is the unstable state and instant of language wherein something which must
be able to be put into phrases cannot yet be. This state includes silence, which is a negative

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phrase, but it also calls upon phrases which are in principle possible. This state is signaled
by what one ordinarily calls a feeling: One cannot find the words, etc. (p. 13)

These statements suggest that the differend can occur in two potentially overlapping
ways.
First, the differend forms when a practice or concept that one can put into language
does not fit within a specific discourse. For example, Deborah Bradley (2011) uses
Lyotards writings about differends to critique Wisconsins preservice music teacher
assessment guidelines, which she asserts contain Eurocentric and elitist phrase regimens that lead to the omission of certain forms of music-making from curricula. As
demonstrated through their emphasis on notation and Western musical terminology,
the revised 2014 National Core Music Standards, like their 1994 predecessors,10
clearly favor Eurocentric musical practices. Language for non-Eurocentric musical
practices exists, but music educators and students cannot argue for it within the parameters imposed by the language, albeit adaptable, of the current drafts of the Model
Cornerstone Assessments. Through its advocates voices, a musical practice or concept not named in the Model Cornerstone Assessments becomes a differend as it
asks to be put into phrases, and suffers the wrong of not being able to be put into
phrases right away (Lyotard, 1983/1988, p. 13).
A second instance of the differend occurs when an experience defies language.
While Lyotard uses the example of silence, aspects of musical experiences also seem
to fit within this explanation. For example, Susanne Langer (1957) asserts that music
does not involve the discursive symbolization inherent in language; instead, through
presentational symbols, a composer articulates subtle complexes of feeling that language cannot even name, let alone set forth (p. 222). Such aspects of music thus
constitute a differend that defies current rhetoric. In Lyotards (1983/1988) words,
What remains to be phrased exceeds what [human beings] can presently phrase
(p. 13). While it is beyond the scope of this philosophical inquiry to discuss all of the
potential facets of musical experiences that may currently lack expression in language,
aspects of the emotional, social, and ethical qualities of musical engagement may all
serve as possible instances of the differend.
While the authors of the Model Cornerstone Assessments deserve recognition
for including a wide range of music-making, no measurement apparatus will ever
address the full range of language related to the worlds vast musical practices or
account for the parts of musical experiences that defy clear quantification. As such,
the limits of the Model Cornerstone Assessments call into question the ambitious
goals articulated by the authors of the Conceptual Framework for the National Core
Arts Standards. These authors call the Model Cornerstone Assessments worthy to
teach to, adding:
Indeed, the term cornerstone is meant to suggest that just as a cornerstone anchors a
building, these assessments should anchor the curriculum around the most important
performances that students should be able to do (on their own) with acquired content
knowledge and skills. (State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education, 2014, p. 15)

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The image of anchors and practice of anchoring are problematic because

whether state and district leaders adopt the Model Cornerstone Assessments directly
or write their own variations, such language suggests the need to solidify music education curricula and measurement apparatuses regardless of changing local musical differends that teachers, students, and community members may find particularly
meaningful. While music educators, students, and other stakeholders will inevitably
need to make choices about what to measure at a given time and place, language such
as anchor and worthy to teach to neglects the limits of measurement apparatuses
and may dissuade individuals from highlighting the currently unmeasured and immeasurable aspects of musical experiences.

Intra-Action
Thus far in this philosophical inquiry I have primarily focused on the relationships
between measurement and student and measurement apparatus, student, and teacher.
The effect of measurement on teachers and on teacher-student relationships has gone
largely undiscussed. How might the measurement process interface with teachers
evolving selves and teacher-student engagement?
The diffractive methodology discussed earlier necessitates what Barad (2007)
terms intra-action. She distinguishes between interaction, which occurs between
discrete entities, and intra-action, through which determinant entities emerge
(p. 128). To use a physics example, interaction occurs if a wave collides with a wall
and then retreats unaffected by the event. In contrast, intra-action involves a wave and
wall that both alter as a result of their meeting; the wave changes as it is sent backward
from the wall and interferes with itself, and the wall changes as it absorbs energy from
the wave. The intra-action between wave and wall in part constitutes the evolving
identity of each. Barad asserts the intra-active nature of both scientific measurement
and existence more broadly, writing, Reality is therefore not a fixed essence. Reality
is an ongoing dynamic of intra-activity (p. 205).
The current drafts of the Model Cornerstone Assessments do provide students
opportunities to intra-act with their musical surroundings. For example, the accomplished level of the ensemble performing assessment asks students to draw on their
own interests in order to select, analyze, prepare, and perform three contrasting musical pieces with attention to appropriateness for performance contexts (National
Association for Music Education, 2015d). According to the assessment rubric, students who successfully meet this standard will have Exhibited insightful expressive
qualities representative of stylistic/composer and personal intent with attention to
nuance and sub-phrasing as a means to connect with the listener (National Association
for Music Education, 2015d, p. 13). Such writing suggests intra-actions between student and music and student and listener.
Yet, when it comes to teachers, measurements, and students, rather than intraactions, authors writing materials associated with the Model Cornerstone Assessments
imply the existence of interactions. For example, authors of the Conceptual Framework
for the National Core Arts Standards state, With a focus on processes, enduring

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understandings, essential questions, and assessments, these arts standards represent a

new and innovative approach to arts education that will serve students, teachers, parents, and decisionmakers now and in the future (State Education Agency Directors of
Arts Education, 2014, p. 25). The word serve implies that students, teachers, parents,
and decisionmakers have fixed identities; the materials serve preexisting needs
rather than change or produce the aforementioned actors. In other words, students,
teachers, parents, and decisionmakers interact with the named materials and with each
other, leaving each individuals identity fundamentally unchanged.
When Model Cornerstone Assessments documents do suggest that teachers might
alter as a result of intra-actions, they highlight teacher-teacher relationships rather than
teacher-student ones. For instance, authors of the Common Arts Assessment
Initiative (2014) document explain that the pilot version aims to promote collaboration and exchange of instructional ideas among teachers (p. 1). While teachers may
alter in the process of sharing ideas with each other, how they change as a result of
intra-acting with students during measurement practices remains absent from this and
similar documents.
Understanding not just measurement but existence as intra-active means that when
a teacher measures and assesses student learning, both teacher and student alter. For
instance, the teacher might change as he or she realizes that specific tone production
suggestions had little impact on the majority of students performances or as he or she
becomes curious about how a student came to make a certain compositional decision.
Simultaneously, the student may feel proud at having met a specific expectation, frustrated at not fully comprehending a measurement apparatus, or grateful for a better
understanding of what he or she can improve.
Through these intra-actions, the very idea of what it means to be a teacher and
student emerges. The one who measures comes in part to constitute a teachers
evolving self while the one who has his or her learning measured comes in part to
constitute a students evolving self. However, given that constructions of teacher
and student necessitate each other, a more accurate statement might be, Intra-active
measurement and assessment processes produce the integrated, evolving constructs of
teacher and student. Such intra-actions can bring teachers and students closer
together or distance them, cause them to work harder at their respective roles, or make
them apathetic. However, intra-actions cannot leave teachers, students, and their
relationships with each other unchanged. In short, measuring and assessing are not just
actions that teachers do to students but intra-active processes that produce teachers,
students, and music education.

Implications
In considering the nature of measurement in music education, I argued that measurement changes and ultimately in part constitutes musical experiences, measurement
apparatuses create musical practices and propagate inclusions and exclusions, and
teachers and students emerge as a result of intra-acting during measurement and
assessment processes. These assertions suggest four possible implications for practice.

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First, discourse about measurement, and more broadly assessment, necessitates

accompanying language noting the intra-active nature of such engagements. Words
like measure and assess are problematic because as transitive verbs, they transfer
action from one noun to another. For instance, the phrase The teacher measures student learning shifts the action away from an unchanged teacher. Such language
neglects that teachers and students alter through and are constituted by measurement
and assessment processes. Yet, given the current educational political climate, it is
impractical and potentially detrimental to eliminate words such as measure and assess
from music education discourse.
Instead, music educators might complement terms such as measure and assess
with language such as grow, develop, and become. For example, teachers, students,
and policymakers might make statements such as, Students develop through selfassessments of their improvisations or Students grow when teachers measure and
assess their compositions. Rather than implying that measurement takes a snapshot of
existing practices, such language acknowledges that measurement, in conjunction
with assessment, alters and inevitably produces musical experiences. The aforementioned statements also have the added advantage of positioning measurement and
assessment as processes that students participate in rather than as acts done to them.
Placing students as the subject of statements about measurement and assessment reinforces their active role in these processes.
Teachers, students, and policymakers could also use complementary language to
acknowledge the intra-active nature of teachers measurement and assessment experiences. For instance, authors might consider phrases such as, By measuring and assessing students, teachers can become more responsive to their developmental needs. Such
discourse emphasizes that rather than distanced observers, teachers evolve through and
are constituted by their measurement and assessment practices.
A second implication for policy and practice is that because measurement apparatuses produce and reinforce a particular set of musical experiences, policymakers,
teachers, and students might empower themselves and each other to engage critically
with and potentially alter them. Regardless of whether teachers and students use measurement apparatuses they created or ones formulated by others, they might consider
the limits of their existing practices. For example, teachers and students might examine
the instructions, self-assessments, and teacher rubrics associated with the Model
Cornerstone Assessments proposed for their grade level or musical elective and discuss
what aspects of music that they find meaningful are missing from such documents.
Because assessment involves the combination of measurement and evaluation
(Payne, 2003), music educators and students might also interrogate how they make
value judgments about measured quantities. For instance, they could ask: What meaning do we find in these value judgments, and how do they affect our musical and
educative experiences? To what extent do these evaluations reflect the values of music
makers in our multiple communities? How might we evaluate these measured quantities differently?
Additionally, Barad (2007) asserts the need for analyzing how boundaries are produced rather than presuming sets of well-worn binaries in advance (p. 30). Drawing

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on this statement, teachers and students might engage in critical dialogue about who
produced their measurement apparatuses, how they created them, and for what purposes. As a result of such explorations, teachers and students might consider how they
could alter their existing measurement apparatuses as well as create possible alternative measurement apparatuses. Such action aligns with a conception of the Model
Cornerstone Assessments as adaptable models rather than unchangeable mandates.
By giving themselves the agency to engage critically with and alter measurement
apparatuses, music educators and students can develop higher order thinking skills
related to the process of measurement and adopt measurement apparatuses meaningful
for their particular circumstances.
Third, teachers, students, and policymakers might balance discourse calling for
relevant and reliable assessments (e.g., State Education Agency Directors of Arts
Education, 2014, p. 16) with language promoting spaces for uncertainty, experimentation, and vulnerability. As such, music education policymakers might reconsider or
qualify language such as The evidence that is collected tells students what is most
important for them to learn. What is not assessed is likely to be regarded as unimportant (State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education, 2014, p. 15). Perhaps drawing on Lyotards concept of the differend, music educators, students, and policymakers
might recognize and celebrate that there exist aspects of musical experiences that defy
the language of measurement and assessment. While teachers can perhaps hint at
unnamable musical facets using language such as poetry and metaphors,11 they might
also facilitate musical spaces not directly focused on measurable goals. Although past
measurements and assessments will always influence subsequent musical endeavors,
by complementing such discourse with the promotion of unmeasured experiences,
music education teachers, students, and policymakers can meet the demands of the
existing education climate while retaining possibilities for experiences highlighting
the unique aspects of musical engagements praised by philosophers such as Langer.
Finally, if measurement and assessment are intra-active processes through which
student and teacher emerge, then music educators and students might question to
what extent they feel satisfied with the evolving identities forming as a result of current measurement and assessment intra-actions and contemplate the possibilities of
changes to those intra-actions. Music educators might ask: How can I promote measurement and assessment intra-actions through which students emerge possessing
the dispositions needed to seek out more musical growth and to feel capable and
empowered to continue learning music beyond school walls? To what extent do my
measurement and assessment intra-actions benefit or harm my relationships with students as well as my own conception of myself as teacher? What possible students
and teachers do my current measurement and assessment practices exclude or inhibit
from emerging, and how might I act otherwise?
Moreover, since Barad (2007) conceives of intra-action not just as a part of measurement but of life, music educators and students might reimagine music education as a
fundamentally intra-active process. As such, teachers and students might consider how
the assumptions, aims, and questions underlying all aspects of their musically educative
intra-actions contribute to their evolving conceptions of students, teachers, and

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relationships between the two. For example, music educators and students could question how their intra-actions with music makers outside of the classroom enable the
emergence not just of students but of musicians who consider themselves contributing members of various local and global musical communities. Teachers and students might also contemplate how their musical intra-actions reinforce exclusions,
social injustices, and hegemonic systems in their school and beyond, perhaps countering such practices with intra-actions favoring empathy, openness, and reflective ethical action. Such undertakings involve asking not just how musical endeavors can alter
others but how teachers, students, music-making, and their interrelationships change
in the process.
In summary, current discourse surrounding the music Model Cornerstone
Assessments assumes a reflective and interactive worldview in which measurement
apparatuses capture existing circumstances. Yet, Barad (2007) demonstrates the
inaccuracy of such assumptions with regard to measurement, instead positing the concepts of diffraction and intra-action and explaining measurement apparatuses as
boundary-making practices. Measurement apparatuses produce both musical experiences and evolving entities such as students and teachers. By reconsidering their
language and action, policymakers, music educators, and students can promote more
accurate understandings of measurement and assessment processes and empower
themselves to reimagine their intra-actions with measurement and with each other.
Acknowledgment
The author would like to thank Phil Richerme, professor of physics at Indiana University, for
verifying the scientific accuracy of this paper and offering suggestions for further clarification.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.

Notes
1. The authors of the music Model Cornerstone Assessments are not the same as those who
wrote the Conceptual Framework, but the webpage on which the Conceptual Framework
is located (http://www.nationalartsstandards.org/) includes a prominent link to the music
Model Cornerstone Assessments webpage. As such, while some authors of the Model
Cornerstone Assessments may have different goals than the authors of the Conceptual
Framework, it is important to consider how their work is situated within broader discourse
related to the Model Cornerstone Assessments.
2. In offering this investigation, I do not aim to dismiss or undermine the work of those generously volunteering their time to author the documents discussed here. Given the contemporary education paradigm, the current drafts of Model Cornerstone Assessments serve the

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Image 1. Diffractive pattern.

3.
4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

important function of providing music educators a practical starting point for thoughtful,
multifaceted assessments that go beyond simple performance tasks or knowledge recall.
A complete list of the current drafts is available at http://www.nafme.org/my-classroom/
standards/mcas-information-on-taking-part-in-the-field-testing/.
Barad (2007) initially explains that in physics, diffraction occurs when the phenomena
being measured self-interacts. For example, a diffractive pattern emerges when a wave
interacts with itself when passing through an opening. Image 1 demonstrates the constructive and destructive interference that constitute such phenomena. In this diffractive pattern,
the constructive interference is most visible in the center of the image, while the destructive interference is most visible at the top and bottom next to the wall. When constructing a diffractive methodology, Barad expands this explanation to include intra-actions
between different entities.
The Model Cornerstone Assessments are meant to be adaptable. While this scenario uses a
draft of a Model Cornerstone Assessment as written, it illuminates the nature of the practices of
measurement and assessment in education more broadly and thus has implications for teachers
adapting the Model Cornerstone Assessments as well as those using other assessments.
While no exact parallel exists in physicsa researcher would not share the results of
measurement with the particle under investigationBarad (2007) extends the process of
diffraction to interpersonal relationships, using it as justification for her concept of intraaction, which is explained in a later section of this article. Thus, it is consistent with Barads
philosophy to apply her writings about diffraction not just to the process of measurement
but to explanations of interpersonal assessment practices that utilize past measurements.
Since all of the current Model Cornerstone Assessment drafts indicate that they are designed
to measure student achievement (e.g., National Association for Music Education, 2015a,
p. 2; National Association for Music Education, 2015c, p. 2), referring to them as measurement apparatuses is consistent with their authors language.
While most authors of the Conceptual Framework for the National Core Arts Standards
are not directly affiliated with the music Model Cornerstone Assessments, Scott Shuler
and Richard Wells are both co-chairs of the National Core Music Standards writing team

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and music MCA Benchmarking Facilitators (see http://nccas.wikispaces.com/Model

+Cornerstone+Assessment+Benchmarking+Landing+Page). The authors of the music
Model Cornerstone Assessments webpage (http://www.nafme.org/my-classroom/stan
dards/mcas-information-on-taking-part-in-the-field-testing/) do not directly note the
possibility of benchmarking student work. However, on the National Coalition for Core
Arts Standards website, there is a statement thanking those participating in the current
music Model Cornerstone Assessment pilot testing displayed alongside hyperlinks to
both the Conceptual Framework and a webpage entitled MCA Benchmarking 2015
(see http://nccas.wikispaces.com/High+School+MCA+Piloting+Teachers). Although
the authors of music Model Cornerstone Assessments may not have the same goals as
these other stakeholders, it is important to examine the discourse surrounding their work.
9. A recently added statement on the music Model Cornerstone Assessments webpage
explains them as part of a move to authentic and contextually based assessments
(National Association for Music Education, 2016). The authors of this statement suggest a
possible move away from the universal conceptions of authenticity and relevance implied
by the authors of the Conceptual Framework.
10. See, for example, Benedict (2007) and Schmidt (1996).
11. See, for example, Kristevas (1974/1984) assertions about the possibilities of poetic
language.

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Author Biography
Lauren Kapalka Richerme is an assistant professor of music education at the Indiana
University Jacobs School of Music. Her research interests include philosophy and education
policy.
Submitted July 15, 2015; accepted April 26, 2016.