The Maine Arts Assessment Initiative is a network of arts teachers and Maine Department of Education organizers who are fostering leadership in standards based learning and assessment. This study sought to answer the question: What is the reciprocal flow of ideas between a group of students, their teacher and the organizers of the Maine Arts Assessment Initiative?  To answer the question a case study employing ethnographic methods borrowed from  Spradley’s ethnographic interview process was used (1972).  Three findings emerged: Standards based instruction and assessment requires that teachers qualify learning rather than quantify it, which requires major changes in classroom practices; the quantities of standards that are being developed at the state and national level are perhaps untenable; and the demands of creating a classroom community require and constrain teachers to employ sufficiency and efficiency that may be an obstacle to implementing standards based instruction.