State standards, benchmarks, or frameworks have become a way of life for most art teachers. When they write lesson plans, they look over their state's visual art standards and insert a couple that seem to fit that lesson. The National Art Education Standards were developed and adopted in the early 1990s in response to mandates for educational reform and accountability. In this article, the author discusses the importance of educational standards in improving the quality of art education to students. The national standards are intentionally stated broadly to allow teachers and schools to structure their programs to meet the needs of their communities and students and yet still achieve the national standards. Art standards have become more important than ever because school administration has come to affirm that to be truly educated, a person must have at least a basic knowledge of the arts.