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About the Curriculum Matrix
Answering the Question: What Should We Teach?
Schools today face conflicting challenges.
- Meet the proficiency requirements of state academic standards and tests under No Child Left Behind
- Prepare students more effectively for the world in which they will live and work.
So, how can schools and teachers ensure that:
- their own vision of a complete education doesn't get lost in the rush to teach to the test?
- their students receive a rigorous and relevant education
There is no simple solution. But districts can begin with a shared vision of a quality education: focusing instruction on state standards, state tests, and the essential skills that students need to be successful.
The Curriculum Matrix, created by the International Center for Leadership in Education, is a powerful, easy-to-use tool that
- assists teachers in improving the performance of their students on high-stakes assessments
- helps students acquire the knowledge and skills they will need to succeed after graduation.
The Curriculum Matrix correlates your own state standards in English language arts, mathematics, and science with:
- state assessments required by NCLB
- the results of the Survey of Essential Skills, in which 18,000 educators and community members identified the most essential curricular content for high school graduates.
The Curriculum Matrix indicates which state standards/benchmarks/performance indicators/topics should be high priorities, based on
- whether - and how frequently - they are tested
- how highly they are rated in the Survey of Essential Skills.
With this tool at their fingertips, educators can make informed decisions about whether to place more or less emphasis on a particular standard.
- Will it help students succeed on tests?
- Is it consistent with what educators and the community believe a high school graduate should know and be able to do?
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