Federal Way Public Schools engaged in a Power Standards identification process – an endeavor they referred to as, “consistent, comprehensive, and systemic.” Their teams used existing State and National Standards and included P-12 grade teachers as well as instructional coaches and curriculum specialists. Their products – for just about every curricular area – can be found on the Federal Way Essential Standards Support Tools page and provide an excellent example of the products that emerge from a thorough standards prioritization process.
Similar to the work in Federal Way, teachers in the Lake Washington School District engaged in a process of identifying “core” or “essential” standards and have also produced documents that provide excellent examples of Power Standards. Click on the following link to see the Lake Washington Power Standards.
Finally, teachers in Auburn have also spent a great deal of time identifying Power Standards to guide their instruction. You can view their work at the Auburn Power Standards Page. In addition to the content specific/grade level Power Standards documents, Auburn also produces “Power Standards Brochures” that give a nice overview of what students are expected to learn at a particular grade level – these appear to be very parent friendly documents and help to communicate the most essential learnings at each grade level – here are a few examples:
- 2nd Grade Power Standards Brochure
- 4th Grade Power Standards Brochure
- Middle School Math Power Standards Brochure
- Middle School ELA Power Standards Brochure
- High School Math Power Standards Brochure
- High School ELA Power Standards Brochure
IMPORTANT REMINDER: The Power Standards work in the Lake Washington and Auburn School Districts pre-dates the arrival of CCS. The teams in Federal Way were only able to include CCS documents late in their process, nevertheless the documents these districts have produced still provide excellent examples of “essential standards/power standards” products.
More closely related to the recent arrival of Common Core Standards, the State of North Carolina has produced some very interesting and helpful documents that an serve to assist teams in “unpacking” the Common Core Standards. That work can be accessed at the following link – NC ESSENTIAL STANDARDS INSTRUCTIONAL SUPPORT TOOLS. The “unpacking standards” documents were created to support teachers in their understanding of the CCS and essential standards. The documents demonstrate at a granular level the knowledge and skills students are expected to master at a particular grade.