Having taught art education in higher education for over 20 years, I felt the need to address an escalating concern of the nature of art education as raised by many pre-service and in-service American art teachers that I have encountered. These art teachers are concerned with the recent paradigm shift of art education from the conventional art education pedagogy (i.e., teaching art for art's sake or discipline-based art education) to teaching art for social justice, or discussing social issues in art classrooms. This article is in response to this concern. It addresses issues of the profession of art education relevant to practitioners and attempts to address the main concern over the recent paradigm shift from the conventional art pedagogy to teaching art for social justice.