Music is listed as a core academic subject under the federal No Child Left Behind Act – but until now there’s been no unified way to measure student performance statewide.

So the Florida Music Educators’ AND the Florida School Music Associations have designed a test of general music knowledge that will soon begin pilot testing.

University of Florida music professor Timothy Brophy chaired the task force that designed the test. He spoke on WGCU’s Gulf Coast Live.

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“We’re looking at doing a statewide field test to set levels of achievement in spring of 2007 – for the 4th grade phase one test. Approximately a year after we do our initial pilot testing and we develop our final version is when we implement these statewide.”

At first only 4th graders will take the test – but plans call for similar tests for 8th and 10th graders once the kinks are worked out.

Florida joins a small, but growing number of states developing this kind of music assessment test.