In the era of education marked by rigorous standards and limited instructional time, prioritizing standards is not just a strategic move—it’s a necessity. Priority standards (or power standards) serve as the cornerstone for designing meaningful learning experiences, ensuring alignment between what we teach, how we assess, and how we support students in achieving success. Determining and clustering these standards is a reflective act of backward design. Doing so strengthens coherence across grade levels and learning progressions.
Backward design begins with clarity about what students need to know and be able to do by the end of a unit or course. Priority standards streamline the overwhelming array of content into what is most essential for students to master deeply. They are not meant to replace other standards but to provide focus—ensuring that every student builds a strong foundation for future learning.
Lenses for Prioritizing Standards: A Framework for Focused Instruction
Determining priority standards is a thoughtful and deliberate process that requires looking beyond the surface of what students need to learn. With an overwhelming number of standards and limited instructional time, educators must focus on those that provide the greatest impact on student growth and success. The selection process is guided by lenses that help ensure the chosen standards meet long-term learning needs, promote equity, and support meaningful connections across disciplines.
Each lens offers a unique perspective, ensuring that priority standards are academically rigorous, practical, inclusive, and relevant. By applying these lenses —Endurance, Leverage, Readiness, Equity, Data Driven, and Cultural Relevance — educators can create a well-rounded curriculum that prepares students for success in school and life. The lenses help ensure students’ diverse identities and experiences are reflected in the teaching. Fostering a sense of belonging and engagement in the learning process.
The backward design criteria offer a roadmap for prioritizing standards effectively. Thereby creating a foundation for instruction that is both focused and aligned to the needs of all learners.
- Endurance: Does the learning extend beyond a single test or grade? Priority standards should reflect knowledge and skills that students will use throughout their lives based on the learning progression.
- Leverage: Does the standard have cross-disciplinary applications? For example, informational text analysis (CCSS RI.5.2) supports science, social studies, and technical literacy.
- Readiness for Next Levels of Learning: Does the standard prepare students for success in subsequent grades or courses? This ensures vertical alignment across the curriculum.
- Equity: Does the standard promote access and opportunities for all students, including multilingual learners and students with disabilities?
- Data Driven: Ensure that your priority standard clusters are anchored in at least 3 years of state and screener data.
- Cultural Relevance: Does the standard allow for teaching in a way that reflects the identities, histories, and voices of the students in the classroom?
Clustering Standards for Integrated Learning
Teaching standards in isolation can lead to fragmented learning experiences, where students struggle to see the bigger picture or apply their knowledge across contexts. Standards are inherently interdependent, with skills and concepts often building upon and reinforcing one another. By clustering related standards, educators can design integrated, interdisciplinary units of study that mirror the complexities of real-world thinking and problem-solving.
- For example, combining CCSS RL.5.2 (identifying themes) with RL.5.3 (analyzing characters and events) allows students to explore how narrative elements work together to convey meaning. Adding W.5.1 (writing opinions) encourages students to synthesize their understanding through analytical writing.
- Similarly, in science, pairing NGSS 3-LS4-3 (constructing arguments about environmental changes) with CCSS RI.3.2 (determining main ideas in informational text) integrates scientific inquiry with literacy skills, empowering students to evaluate evidence and communicate findings effectively.
Clustering standards creates opportunities for students to make meaningful connections. Students foster a deeper understanding, transferable skills, and the ability to apply their learning across disciplines. This integrated approach not only maximizes instructional time but also engages students in rich, authentic learning experiences.
A Process for Prioritizing Standards with Vertical Alignment
Prioritizing standards requires a structured, intentional process that fosters collaboration and ensures coherence across grade levels. By following these steps, educators can identify and align key learning progressions, creating a focused and equitable curriculum that supports all students. This process emphasizes teamwork, analysis, and integration, ensuring that priority standards form a strong foundation for teaching, learning, and assessment.
- Assemble a Collaborative Team
Include teachers across grade levels, instructional coaches, and administrators to ensure multiple perspectives. - Unpack the Standards
Break each standard into its component skills and concepts. Discuss what mastery looks like at each grade level. - Apply the Lenses
Use the endurance, leverage, readiness, equity, and cultural relevance criteria to identify priority standards. - Cluster Standards
Identify natural connections among standards within a grade and across disciplines. - Check Vertical Alignment
Map the standards across grade levels to identify gaps, redundancies, or misalignments. Ensure that priority standards build toward key learning progressions. - Test with Anchor Assessments
Develop performance tasks or assessments aligned to the priority standards. Verify that they assess essential skills and prepare students for the next steps in learning.
Maintaining Learning Progressions
Key learning progressions are the “spines” that guide students through increasingly complex concepts and skills over time. Prioritizing standards within these progressions ensures that students don’t miss critical building blocks. For example:
- In mathematics, progressions might move from understanding fractions (Grade 3) to performing operations with fractions (Grade 4) to solving real-world fraction problems (Grade 5).
- In literacy, progressions might follow theme analysis from simple texts (Grade 3) to comparing themes in multiple texts (Grade 5) to evaluating the author’s development of themes in complex works (Grade 8).
By clustering standards and adhering to these progressions, educators create a seamless pathway for student growth.
From Clarity to Action
Priority standards anchor backward design in clarity and purpose, ensuring that teaching focuses on what matters most. The process of selecting and clustering these standards—grounded in thoughtful collaboration and a commitment to equity—elevates the coherence and impact of instruction. By doing so, we meet the demands of rigorous standards. And empower students to thrive in a connected, interdisciplinary world.
Resources to Support the Work
Identifying and implementing priority standards is a critical aspect of effective curriculum design. These resources collectively offer comprehensive guidance on the selection and implementation of priority standards to enhance curriculum effectiveness and student achievement.
- Priority Instructional Content in English Language Arts/Literacy and Mathematics
Developed by Student Achievement Partners, this resource provides detailed guidance on prioritizing instructional content within ELA and mathematics to enhance student learning outcomes. Achieve the Core - Priority Standards | Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
This resource outlines Missouri’s approach to identifying priority standards across various subjects, offering supporting materials and implementation strategies. DESE - Prioritizing Standard Books: Authored by Larry Ainsworth, these two books support the prioritization process. Larry Ainsworth
- Power Standards: Focusing on the Essential
Published by Just ASK Publications. This resource discusses the concept of power standards and their role in streamlining curriculum to focus on essential learning outcomes.
Just Ask Publications
