Adopting and Implementing Common Standards is Massively Complex and is Meaningless Without Getting it into the Classroom with Perfect Alignment

Implementing education reform starts with setting Standards for each subject and each grade. It ends with Teachers using perfectly aligned instructional curriculum to ensure demonstration of high student achievement on aligned EOY tests. But the process of turning Standards into perfectly aligned teaching and testing instruments is massively complicated and is unlikely to be done properly without automation support.

Aligned·By·Design provides a complete tool set including powerful automation processes needed to make this task straight forward and manageable, and the system does it efficiently while adding a new measure of quality. Unlike any other system, Aligned·By·Design enables accurate, meaningful alignment across all steps by linking each step back to the natural denominator of Education – discrete content Knowledge/Skills.

For efficiently and effectively adopting and implementing the Common Core State Standards, power tools like those in Aligned·By·Design will be needed. The task is not just a simple replacement of Standards for two subjects. Educators must do a detailed, accurate comparison to the current standards and be able to add the CSSO’s intentionally missing ~15% without overlap. Educators must then align the new course standards vertically and horizontally into the larger, Sudoku-like Framework of Courses and multiple tracks which will likely result in changes in other subjects. All these changes need to be communicated to Districts and Teachers who also have significant work to do in updating their materials.

If the new Common Core State Standards are going to make a difference, they must be properly integrated with the balance of the subjects and all those changes – the entire Standards Framework - reflected in every teacher’s classroom instructional materials in perfect alignment. Power tools can help everyone accomplish this huge job.

Aligned·By·Design provides system support for the following key efforts for State adoption and implementation of the Common Core State Standards:

• Know exactly what the current Standards and tests tell Districts and Teachers what to teach as a baseline before receiving the Common Core Standards
• Receive and analyze the new Standards (and eventually Assessments) to determine exactly how they compare and in particular differ from the current Standards in terms of the actual Knowledge/Skills learning content
• Use the comparison analysis information to precisely add the last ~15% of the Knowledge/Skills content
• Use the system power tools to analyze and adjust vertical and horizontal alignment across all subjects and all tracks to finalize the new Curriculum Framework
• Automatically produce a detailed Knowledge/Skill content comparison between the existing State Standards and the common standards with 15% additions to advise and guide Districts, Teachers and Vendors on the changes
• Use the system to promulgate the new Standards Framework and provide ongoing support and maintenance
• Use the system to salvage the maximum out of existing investments in materials, including Classroom Curriculum and Assessments, by loading and accurately aligning those materials to identify exactly where and the extent of rework necessary to establish alignment to the new Standards

Aligned·By·Design provides system support for the following key efforts for local adoption and implementation of the Common Core State Standards:

• Districts can use the system power tools to evaluate, add local content, and advise schools and Teachers of the changes
• Districts and schools can use the alignment analysis tools to compare grade content proficiencies between the existing and new Standards to expose transitional gaps and overlap, and make plans to ensure all current Students make a trouble free transition to the new Standards and Curriculum
• Teachers can easily load their existing Units and Lesson Plans into the Curriculum module and link them back to Knowledge/Skill items which will be a simple process with automation support
• With their existing Classroom Curriculum loaded into the system, Teachers will immediately be able to compare curriculum coverage – missing and extra content – and then use the tools to update their materials to achieve perfect alignment
• With everything in the system and aligned, any changes that are implemented from federal to state to local can quickly be incorporated by Teachers with minimal effort and high confidence of maintaining alignment