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Learning Standards Standards

K-12 Learning Standards, Decoded

Learning standards should guide teaching. Too often, they bury it.

Learning standards are meant to define what students should know, understand, and be able to do. But in practice, they can feel dense, inconsistent, and difficult to translate into real learning experiences. The language is often abstract. The expectations are layered. The connections between skills, knowledge, assessment, and instruction are rarely clear.

Our learning standards project exists to decode that complexity.

Guides

What are learning standards

The plain-English explanation of what a learning standard is, who writes them, and how teachers actually use them.

Standards vs. curriculum vs. rubrics

Tell standards, curriculum, and rubrics apart in five minutes. Plain definitions and side-by-side examples.

Find your state

Click a state to see the framework it uses for each subject and the statewide tests its students sit for.

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Standards

The major frameworks that shape U.S. K-12 instruction.

Common Core

ELA and Math, K through 12.

NGSS

Next Generation Science Standards.

WIDA

English language development.

ISTE

Digital learner skills.

CASEL

Social and emotional learning.

UDL

Universal Design for Learning.

C3

Social studies framework.

Standards by state

Every U.S. state, the District of Columbia, and the five inhabited U.S. territories publish their own academic standards. Many adopt Common Core or NGSS verbatim; others rebrand them; a few publish their own framework from scratch.