So, when it comes to arts assessment, what are the acknowledged best practices? TheInternational Baccalaureate program, a college-preparatory curriculum available to schools around the world, provides one sophisticated assessment model. I talked to Tara Brancato, a fifth-year music teacher at the Knowledge and Power Preparatory Academy International High School (KAPPA), a Bronx public school with a high-poverty student population. As part of their end-of-course IB exam, Brancato’s 11th- and 12th-grade students listen to recordings and identify their composers, time periods, and musical features; compose original pieces of music; perform on their instruments; and write a research paper comparing musical cultures from around the world. Brancato has fair warning about what will be on her students’ tests, which are created and graded in Cardiff, Wales by IB administrators. She might know in advance, for example, that her students will hear recordings by Mozart and Aaron Copeland, but she won’t know which specific pieces they will hear or what they will be asked about them. Brancato’s teacher evaluation score is partially based on how well her students do on these tests from year to year, and so she gives a lot of practice assessments—something she doesn’t mind, because she thinks both the IB curriculum and the assessments attached to it are high quality.