In-service professional development in education began informally in the early nineteenth-century as a means of disseminating classroom management techniques, specifically addressing ways in which corporal punishment could be delivered to a child without inflicting serious injury. This initial effort paralleled a concern regarding children's rights and welfare sparked by the abuses of the Industrial Revolution. Teachers at the time enjoyed almost total autonomy in the classroom, and although an educator's command of academic content was assumed to have been imparted as part of her or his own education, pedagogical skills, if recognized as important at all, were left to be picked up through experience. By the mid-1800s, public concerns began to arise regarding inconsistency in teacher quality as a result of unregulated teacher training. In response, evening courses in specific subject area education soon were offered to address gaps in teachers' knowledge. Teachers of art, although virtually ignored as a distinct group with specific needs, have nonetheless been carried along with the changing tides of educational reform. This article discusses the rationales for in-service professional development and venues for professional development. Furthermore, the remainder of this article makes the case for professional development opportunities that target the unique needs of art specialists, and demonstrates an underused partnership--that between state art education associations and institutions of higher education--which can offer engaging, rigorous, and most important, relevant, professional development opportunities to K-12 art educators.