DELTA is a collaborative endeavor by the National Dance Education Organization (NDEO) and the State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education (SEADAE) to build national consensus around baseline competencies that ensure entry-level K-12 public school dance educators enter the field with the requisite knowledge and skills necessary for success. The team that created DELTA represents a diverse cross-section of the dance education community including representatives of state Departments of Education, K-12 public school education, higher education, and the research community hailing from thirteen states.

NDEO provides critical leadership for DELTA and supports DELTA through its communication with members and pre-service teacher preparation programs. NDEO dedicates time and expertise of personnel and its infrastructure, including web-based services and support. The development of DELTA was reliant on the content expertise of NDEO team members for collaborating on the test construct design, item development, and participation in ongoing professional around test development.

SEADAE provides critical leadership at the state and national level and is the link between the state pre-service programs and certification requirements at the state level. SEADAE member’s with dance content and assessment expertise led and participated in the test construct design phase, and will continue to support ongoing item development, professional development and psychometric analysis of DELTA test forms to ensure its statistical validity, reliability and absence of bias. SEADAE members from across the nation continue to support DELTA to facilitate state-level adoption of the test by Departments of Educations.

SEADAE and NDEO would like to thank the National Endowment for the Arts for supporting the test development phase of DELTA through matching grant funds in 2013-2015.