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CURRICULUM & STANDARDS

Like you, we understand the importance and challenge of providing every student with standards-based curriculum that is both rigorous and allows for personalized, engaging learning opportunities. As a national leader in improving and developing standards, we help ensure your curriculum not only aligns with local, regional, or national academic standards but also has the depth, effectiveness, and teachability necessary to prepare all students for school and life success.

Want more information about our consulting services, PD and training options, and customized solutions in this area? Contact us today!

Contact Us

by phone
800.858.6830
by email
info@mcrel.org

by web form

Teacher Leaders meeting

Curriculum Audit

A curriculum audit can help your school, district, or state evaluate the effectiveness, depth, and alignment of curriculum to ensure curricular pathways to success for all students. We’ll identify areas of effectiveness and help you set priorities for areas that most need improvement, while keeping in mind the critical importance of developing curricula that can be reasonably taught in the time allotted, allowing teachers to help students develop deep knowledge of what they’re learning.

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elementary school class

Developing a Guaranteed & Viable Curriculum (GVC)

A quality curriculum review and design helps your school or district refine areas of effectiveness and identify opportunities for improvement. Our GVC consultants ensure teachers are teaching essential content and skills, using instructional strategies effectively, and sequencing the curriculum to give students multiple opportunities to learn the content.

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Teachers meeting

Standards Development

We work with schools, districts, states, and other education agencies to develop, review, improve, and implement academic and career technical standards, as well as principal and teacher performance standards. Through a process of qualitative and comparative analysis, we determine how well your curriculum materials align with state standards, identify opportunities for improving rigor, and ensure your standards reflect a research-based scope and sequence. We can also facilitate the implementation of standards, create aligned instructional materials, and develop “crosswalks” between content areas.

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student in classroom

Career Technical Education (CTE)

Do you need help bridging your academic and technical programs? Our experienced consultants can help ensure that your students are engaged in real-world problems and tasks, while still meeting the demands of rigorous academic standards. We offer crosswalks and alignment studies—which identify the academic skills required by and embedded within various CTE pathways and courses—and develop curriculum frameworks for CTE that incorporate research-based instructional strategies.

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students in class

English-Language Learning

Based on the research-based strategies in Classroom Instruction That Works with English Language Learners (2nd Ed.), our consulting services, technical assistance, and professional development show educators how to better support culturally and linguistically diverse students. Emphasizing the acquisition of academic language for ALL™ students, or Academic Language Learners, we help teachers align content with the vocabulary, syntax, and discourse students need to “sound like a book” while presenting ideas, and use targeted academic language that supports the subject matter and helps students explain their reasoning, arguing from evidence, and asking questions. We can also help you integrate the language demands of CCSS in the content areas for English-language learners.

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McREL’s Compendium of Standards

Our online Compendium synthesizes significant standards and benchmark documents across every subject area, including Career Technical Education topics and Life Skills. Presented on its own website in a handy, searchable format, this valuable resource for schools, districts, and states includes the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), links from CCSS to our Compendium languages arts and math benchmarks, and early childhood standards (birth to 36 months).

VISIT COMPENDIUM SITE