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Identify and use a comprehensive assessment system.

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Identify and use a comprehensive assessment system.

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Create and use teams, including specialized service providers.

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Create and use teams, including specialized service providers.

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Provide a continuum of support that includes evidence-based practices for universal, supplemental and intensified supports for academic content.

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Provide a continuum of support that includes evidence-based practices for universal, supplemental and intensified supports for academic content.

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Develop guidelines to implement curriculum with Universal Design for Learning (UDL).

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Develop guidelines to implement curriculum with Universal Design for Learning (UDL).

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Utilize Content Standards and Curriculum Frameworks 

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Utilize Content Standards and Curriculum Frameworks 

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Integrate Culturally Relevant and Responsive Teaching Practices and Asset Based Pedagogies

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Integrate Culturally Relevant and Responsive Teaching Practices and Asset Based Pedagogies

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The content standards adopted by the California State Board of Education are listed below: Printed publications can be purchased from CDE Press Educational Resources Catalog.

Current Standards

Search the California Content Standards
This application contains the 12 California content standards. The application is designed so educators can quickly find, search, and sort relevant standards across disciplines to aid in instructional planning and assessment. This is a web view of our available mobile application, which we encourage you to download. You can find more information about the mobile application on the CA Standards Mobile Application web page.

English Language Arts

Mathematics

English Language Development

English Language Development 2012

Brochures for Parents/Guardians
These brochures on the ELA/literacy standards provide parents/guardians insights into what their children are learning as they progress through the grade levels. The brochures also offer suggestions for parents/guardians to support their students' learning and a list of additional resources.
Spanish

Career Technical Education

Computer Science

Health Education

History-Social Science

History-Social Science, Adopted October 1998 (PDF)

Brochures for Parents/Guardians
These brochures on the history-social science framework provide parents/guardians insights into what their children are learning as they progress through the grade levels. The brochures also provide a brief summary of the instructional shifts in the framework.

Model School Library

Physical Education

Science

California Next Generation Science Standards

Brochures for Parents/Guardians
These brochures on the science standards provide parents/guardians insights into what their children are learning as they progress through the grade levels. The brochures also offer suggestions for parents/guardians to support their students' learning and a list of additional resources.
Spanish

Arts Education

The State Board of Education (SBE) adopted the California Arts Standards for Public Schools, Prekindergarten Through Grade Twelve ( Arts Standards) on January 9, 2019.To download the publication version of the standards, select the link below:

Information about the 2019 Visual and Performing Arts Content Standards Revision is available on the California Arts Standards Web page.

World Languages

The State Board of Education (SBE) adopted the World Languages Standards for Public Schools, Kindergarten Through Grade Twelve on January 9, 2019. To download the publication version of the standards, select the link below:

Previous Content Standards

Questions: Curriculum Frameworks and Instructional Resources Division | CFIRD@cde.ca.gov | 916-319-0881

Last Reviewed: Wednesday, July 13, 2022

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The content standards adopted by the California State Board of Education are listed below: Printed publications can be purchased from CDE Press Educational Resources Catalog. Current Standards Search the California Content Standards This application contains the 12 California content standards.

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Curriculum frameworks provide guidance for implementing the standards adopted by the State Board of Education. Printed publications can be purchased from CDE Press Educational Resources Catalog.

Links to downloads of all curriculum frameworks.

Questions: Curriculum Frameworks and Instructional Resources Division | CFIRD@cde.ca.gov | 916-319-0881

Last Reviewed: Monday, November 20, 2023

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Guidelines for implementing the content standards adopted by the California State Board of Education that are developed by the Instructional Quality Commission.

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How Important is Teaching Literacy in All Content Areas? (article)

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How Important is Teaching Literacy in All Content Areas? (article)

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How Important Is Teaching Literacy in All Content Areas?

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Students do plenty of listening in our classes, but what about reading, writing, and speaking?

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Literacy in the Sciences (elementary resources)

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Literacy in the Sciences (elementary resources)

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Here you'll find ideas for pairing STEM-themed books with hands-on activities, booklists, interviews with children's authors, links to science-themed shows from PBS Kids, and more.

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Comprehensive Literacy State Development Grant Resource Reposi...

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CA Comprehensive State Literacy Plan (pdf)

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CA Comprehensive State Literacy Plan (pdf)

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Math and Literacy (strategy, video, article)

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Math and Literacy (strategy, video, article)

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When Concourse Village Elementary School (CVES) opened in 2013 in the wake of the planned phaseout of P.S. 385, which the New York City Department of Education had tagged with a D, students were struggling academically.

"When we arrived, we found a major deficit across all content areas," said incoming principal and school founder Alexa Sorden, who was particularly alarmed by the reading scores. "The first year was challenging because we were trying to come up with a plan and say, 'OK, how are we going to make sure that all the children are reading on grade level so that they're prepared?'"

Sorden, a former literacy specialist and teacher, felt that a strong foundation in reading and writing underpinned success across all content areas-and she made it the school's mission to be literacy-first. Today, students employ collaborative literacy strategies to support science and social studies units, for example, and bring their narrative skills to bear while making predictions and inferences as they analyze artwork.

In mathematics, a subject area not traditionally associated with literacy, Concourse Village has developed an especially innovative model that reinforces both reading and computational skills. Students tackle tough mathematical word problems through two literacy strategies: a group reading exercise that relies on what Sorden calls "the power of repeated reading," and a problem-solving procedure developed by Exemplars, Inc, along with the problems, that requires students to produce an organized body of written artifacts.

Despite the statistics stacked against them-the school is situated in the poorest congressional district in the nation, and 96 percent of children at CVES are on free and reduced lunch, while 15 percent are homeless-students are now outperforming the averages in both New York State English and math exams by over 40 percent.

What are the details of the math program? We visited the school and spoke to Sorden and fourth-grade mathematics teacher Blair Pacheco at length, and we provide an outline and some video of the school's practices below.

Translating Math Into Words, and Back Into Numbers

In math classes, CVES students approach challenging word problems by reading, annotating, and writing to tease out the meaning-breaking the problems down into smaller parts and using the power of storytelling and narrative to bolster their insights. Word problems are above grade level to ensure that students are stretching to master difficult concepts.

Before considering solutions to a problem, the students start small by trying to clarify what it is actually saying. Numbers and questions are stripped out, and the class uses a three-read protocol that fosters both group and individual learning: The teacher reads the problem, then the students read it, and then everyone reads it together.

"Sometimes when kids see numbers, they start to get confused," said Pacheco. "If we take out those numbers for a brief moment, they're reading it as a story and they're getting that understanding. It's no longer just about math."

For example, in one of Pacheco's classes, students read: "Jaci and Emma are playing a game on their computer where a player earns points." Students relay the gist of the story back to the teacher, who writes it on the board for reference.

The word problem-now with numbers included, but still without the questions that ask students to perform calculations or mathematical comparisons-is then shown on the interactive whiteboard, and the students read it aloud and process the information together.

One student annotates the word problem on the board with input from the class-underlining important information, including numbers and key words. In the example from Pacheco's class, students underline the repeated word round to indicate that there will likely be several rounds of numbers that might require a comparison or a computation.

Based on the annotations, students then create a "What I Know" chart as a class. For example, Pacheco's students agree on how many points each player made in each round.

Using the information they have already identified, students hypothesize about what questions might be asked. For example, Pacheco's students might guess that the question would ask the total number of points for all rounds. Brainstorming possible questions requires students to call on prior knowledge about what they can do with the numbers-compare through greater or lesser than or equal signs, for example, or compute by adding or subtracting.

Finally, the actual question is revealed on the board-and the class reads the whole problem aloud.

From Group to Independent Problem-Solving

After rereading the above-grade-level problem as a class, each student receives a word problem printout differentiated based on their ability. Students work through a five-step problem-solving procedure based on the reading protocol they use as a class. They work independently, or in small groups if they need more support. A checklist of the steps guides them through the problem.

Students scaffold their understanding-and make it visible to themselves and their teachers-by underlining important words, circling the question the problem is asking, and then writing an "I Have To" statement that clarifies what the student must do to arrive at the answer. For example, a student might write, "I have to find out who made the most points in each round."

Then each student devises a mathematical strategy to solve the problem. They might write, "I will use addition," "I will multiply," or "I will use the comparison strategy."

Finally students solve the problem and double-check their work. They write their answer in a complete sentence, put a box around it, and label it "answer." They write out an explanation of how they solved the problem using at least two math words, like multiply and add, and then write a complete sentence making connections to previous math they have learned. They might comment on an observation they made, a pattern or rule they found, a different strategy they could have used, or a comparison they noticed. Writing their takeaways in words reinforces their prior knowledge and how it can be applied in new ways.

"We ask them to make their thinking visible," says Sorden, explaining the rationale behind all the writing in her school's math courses. "Create a plan. Make your thinking visible and clear on paper so that anyone that picks it up is able to make meaning about what you were trying to share. We want them to be able to communicate orally and in writing so that their ideas are clearly communicated with the world."

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A Game-Changing Practice Fuses Math and Literacy

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When Concourse Village Elementary School (CVES) opened in 2013 in the wake of the planned phaseout of P.S. 385, which the New York City Department of Education had tagged with a D, students were struggling academically. "When we arrived, we found a major deficit across all content areas," said incoming principal and school founder Alexa Sorden, who was particularly alarmed by the reading scores.

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Ensuring equity for an increasingly diverse student population relies on today's educators viewing student differences as assets and not deficits. Asset-Based Pedagogies view the diversity that students bring to the classroom, including culture, language, disability, socio-economic status, immigration status, and sexuality as characteristics that add value and strength to classrooms and communities. Asset-Based Pedagogies recognize that the populations listed above are not mutually exclusive. Students can move fluidly between several different groups.

Over the past two decades, many well-respected educational leaders have written about Asset-Based Pedagogies and given the term many other names, including: Funds of Knowledge (Moll and Gonzalez), Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (Ladson-Billings), Culturally Responsive Teaching (Gay and Hammond) and most recently Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies (Paris and Alim). These pedagogies directly counter deficit approaches which viewed the culture, literacies, and languages of students of color as deficiencies that needed to be overcome.

The most recent educational research, Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies, builds upon the asset-based research and pedagogies that came before it and views Ladson-Billings' Culturally Relevant Pedagogy as the groundwork for this new educational theory. Paris and Alim state that the terms "relevant" and "responsive" do not go far enough and that "sustaining" represents the goal of students maintaining their cultural and/or linguistic roots.

Asset-Based Pedagogies include, but are not limited to:

California Department of Education Asset-Based Pedagogies Resources

The California Department of Education has articulated a commitment to educational equity for all students in California. Using the lens of equity, various resources throughout the Department have included references to culturally and linguistically relevant/responsive approaches in addressing the educational needs of all students in California schools. Below you will find links to some of these resources:
English Learner Roadmap Principles Overview Multi-Tiered System of Supports Science Framework-Chapter 10 Access and Equity (PDF)
English Language Arts/English Language Development Framework-Chapter 9: Access and Equity (PDF)

California's Social and Emotional Learning Guiding Principles (PDF)

Questions: Teacher and Leader Policy Office | TLPO@cde.ca.gov | 916-445-7331

Last Reviewed: Thursday, December 24, 2020

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Ensuring equity for an increasingly diverse student population relies on today's educators viewing student differences as assets and not deficits. Asset-Based Pedagogies view the diversity that students bring to the classroom, including culture, language, disability, socio-economic status, immigration status, and sexuality as characteristics that add value and strength to classrooms and communities.

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Culturally Responsive Teaching 101 (video)

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Culturally Responsive Teaching 101 (video)

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Zaretta Hammond: Culturally Responsive Teaching 101 | #PLtogether

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Our Culture Our Schools Culturally Responsive Education in New York City

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The new question-of-the-week is:
What are specific ways to make lessons more culturally responsive and culturally sustaining?
In Part One, Dr. Rocio del Castillo, Dr. Julia Stearns Cloat, Lisa Stringfellow, Valentina Gonzalez, Maurice McDavid, and Cathery Yeh shared their suggestions. You can listen to a 10-minute conversation I had with Rocio, Lisa, Valentina, and Maurice on my BAM! Radio Show. You can also find a list of, and links to, previous shows here.

Today, Kaitlin Popielarz, Sean Ruday, Laura Mitchell, Ed.D., Dr. Laura Greenstein, and Keisha Rembert provide their ideas.
Four examples of culturally sustaining pedagogy Kaitlin Popielarz is a Ph.D. candidate and teacher educator in the College of Education at Wayne State University. Her research and teaching interests are centered upon community-based and culturally sustaining pedagogies within teacher education. You can contact her directly at KPopielarz@wayne.edu or follow her on Twitter @kaitpopielarz:
As a teacher educator, I introduce teacher-candidates (TCs) to culturally responsive (Gay, 2010), relevant (Ladson-Billings, 1995), and sustaining (Paris, 2012) pedagogies in order to support them in the co-creation of affirming and purposeful classroom learning communities. I familiarize TCs to culturally sustaining pedagogy by amplifying the local places and spaces surrounding our classrooms, while also centering the holistic identity of young people and their communities. Through this process, TCs began to develop the consciousness and awareness that is necessary for cultivating dynamic learning environments in which the knowledge, literacy, and cultural heritage of multicultural and multilingual students is celebrated.

Django Paris and H. Samy Alim implore "that schooling should be a site for sustaining the cultural practices of communities of color rather than eradicating them," (2017). Such liberatory learning seeks to "sustain and support" students who have been marginalized within the education system (Paris & Alim, 2014). Culturally sustaining classrooms "name and conceptualize" how students and their communities become the purpose of teaching and learning practices (Paris & Alim, 2014). Above all, culturally sustaining pedagogy is grounded in "a love that can help us see our young people as whole versus broken when they enter schools, and love that can work to keep them whole as they grow and expand who they are and can be through education," (Paris & Alim, 2017).

I have had the distinct pleasure of witnessing TCs create magic in their classrooms through culturally sustaining pedagogy. I would like to share specific, tangible examples:

1. Zora utilizes care, respect, and affirming love to build authentic relationships with her students. By seeing and treating her students as whole human beings with a wealth of skills, knowledge, and interests to contribute to the classroom, Zora co-plans and co-teaches with her 6th grade students in order to center their identities through multimodal social studies learning experiences.

2. Howard connects local history to his high school social studies classes in order to center students' lived experiences into the curriculum. Through collaborative jigsaw activities, Howard supports his students in visualizing what key moments in U.S. and global history looked like within their communities. In this way, storytelling and personal knowledge are connected to the content standards in Howard's classroom.

3. Through intentional co-planning and co-teaching, Eliza and Madeleine collaborate to establish a classroom community in which students are teachers and teachers are facilitators. Eliza and Madeleine incorporate the NCSS C3 Framework into their world-history curriculum through peer-to-peer learning opportunities. This encourages students to critically analyze primary and secondary sources to understand the world around them.

4. Grace recognizes that her 6th grade students are eager to learn about local and global issues in order to propose solutions for more loving futures. Being so, Grace designs units on the five themes of geography around the passionate interests of her students. In order to fully understand the theme of human-environment interaction, Grace connects the social studies curriculum to local water crises through an immersive cross-curricular unit. Grace's students employ their agency in order to propose and present solutions for water crises in their community.

Culturally sustaining pedagogy honors the humanity and identity of young people and their communities. This type of teaching and learning is an act of freedom, which releases teachers and students from the confined power structures of the monotonous classroom. Culturally sustaining pedagogy encourages teachers to learn from and with their students as they seek to sustain and revitalize learning opportunities in the classroom, local community, and beyond. In turn, teachers and students may collaborate together to reimagine the classroom as a place of transformative social change.

See References here.

A four-step process
Sean Ruday is an associate professor of English education at Longwood University and a former classroom teacher. He has written nine books on literacy instruction, including Culturally Relevant Teaching in the English Language Arts Classroom: A Guide for Teachers. You can follow him on Twitter at @SeanRuday:

My personal experiences with culturally responsive teaching and its benefits began in my first year of teaching: I began my career as an English teacher at an urban middle school in Brooklyn, N.Y., and quickly found culturally responsive teaching to be an essential component of effective English instruction. My students further understood writing strategies through the analysis of song lyrics they identified, enhanced their awareness of characterization through their understandings of local dialects, and developed their critical-thinking skills while reflecting on the importance of community events. These instructional practices gave me firsthand confirmation of what research says about the importance of culturally responsive teaching: Making these connections to my students' home lives and communities helped them master academic skills and strategies and see their work in school as related to their out-of-school lives.

Culturally responsive teaching is an outstanding practice that values students' backgrounds and uses their out-of-school lives to help them learn academic content. How, then, should teachers put it into action in their classrooms? I recommend using the four-step process described here.

1. Introduce an academic concept to students.

I suggest beginning by introducing to students the key components of an academic concept, using a mini-lesson and examples to help students understand the fundamentals of the concept being described. For example, when teaching middle school students about prepositional phrases, I began by conducting a mini-lesson that conveyed the features of prepositional phrases and showed them what this concept looks like in practice.

2. Explain the significance of the concept to the students.

Once the students understand the features of the concept, I talk with them about why that concept is important to its subject area. For example, when talking about a grammatical concept or writing strategy with students, I explain why that concept or strategy is important to effective writing. Continuing with the example of prepositional phrases, I explained to my students that these phrases are tools that authors use purposefully to enhance the amount of detail in their works and provide published excerpts that use this concept to illustrate my point.

3. Create opportunities for students to apply the strategy to their out-of-school lives.

In this instructional step, students conduct authentic inquiries in which they look for connections between the material they learn in school and their out-of-school lives. I recommend asking students to look for examples in their out-of-school lives of the academic concept on which the class is focusing. For example, when discussing prepositional phrases, I asked students to look for examples of texts they engaged with outside of school that used prepositional phrases or to think about ways they use prepositional phrases in authentic situations outside of school. This practice builds students' understandings of the importance of the concepts they learn in school and helps them see that the concepts are used in a wide range of authentic situations that are relevant to their home lives, cultures, and individual experiences.

4. Ask students to share how the strategy relates to their out-of-school lives.

In this final step, students share the out-of-school examples they developed of the academic concept being used. When I asked my middle schoolers for examples of prepositional phrases they noticed outside of school, some identified times when the concept was used in popular song lyrics, others noted times when they heard these phrases used when talking with friends, and others shared instances of them using prepositional phrases in conversations outside of school.

This process can be applied to a wide range of subject areas and academic concepts; it can make education relevant and culturally responsive for students by providing authentic, real-world connections between what students learn in school and their out-of-school lives. Culturally responsive teaching shows that the skills students learn in school aren't just useful in the classroom: They have applications to all aspects of their lives.

"Culturally responsive teachers know their students well" Laura Mitchell is currently an associate professor at the University of Houston-Downtown. Laura's passion for teaching and learning led her to Fielding Graduate University, where she completed her doctorate of education in the School of Educational Leadership and Change. Laura has worked in elementary schools as a bilingual education teacher, a campus coordinator, and an assistant principal for 25 years. Now as an associate professor, she combines her passions for teaching multilingual students and leading teachers to discover their own passion for teaching. Laura's e-mail is mitchelll@uhd.edu:
Culturally responsive teachers know more than just the multicultural background of various groups. They know how to respond to the social-emotional, cultural, and academic needs of the students. When they build on the theories of culturally responsive teaching described by Ladson-Billings (1995), they can begin to build an inclusive classroom for all students. Ladson-Billings stated that teachers need to integrate the following criteria into their teaching practices in order to create culturally responsive classrooms:

Students must experience academic success.

Students must develop and/or maintain cultural competence.

Students must develop a critical consciousness through which they challenge the status quo of the current social order. (p. 159)

By implementing these criteria into the classrooms, culturally responsive teachers engage students with the learning in meaningful work that creates inclusive classrooms for all students. Culturally responsive teachers use Think/Pair/Share and Wonder Questions (Barell, 2016) to learn more about their students and to encourage them to challenge the status quo of their learning environments.

Culturally responsive teachers know their students well. They understand more about their students by learning their family backgrounds, geography, home languages, traditions, and favorites. This knowledge goes beyond the basics of favorite foods, colors, or pets. It involves delving deep into conversations with students in order to really know them. This process takes time, and teachers who use these strategies at the beginning of the year are successful with using this information throughout the school year to draw reluctant learners into the learning process. As they teach lessons, the teachers know the students' interests and family background. This will engage reluctant learners in participating in the learning process longer. They may also be willing to ask more questions because they know their teacher understands them.

Culturally responsive teachers build on success with their students by using strategies such as Think/Pair/Share, Turn and Talk, and Elbow Partners. These strategies give the teacher opportunities to listen to their students while the students share with partners about the topic they are discussing in class. In the Think mode of Think/Pair/Share, the students receive opportunities to form what they want to say in their heads. In the Pair mode, they turn to a partner and share those ideas. This gives the students time to format what they want to say and then rehearse it with their partners. Then, as the teacher moves into the Share mode, the students can choose to share what they said with their partner or have the partner share the ideas.

Culturally responsive teachers also encourage the students to ask questions. Students from various cultures are often taught to be quiet and do not challenge the adults in their lives. They are taught to respect their teachers, and by that respect, they should not question the teachers' practices or what they do. This can become difficult in the learning process because by showing respect, the students will not ask questions in the classroom. Culturally responsive teachers know that they should teach their students to learn how to advocate for themselves by asking questions. They learn in a safe environment how to challenge the learning process and school system.

Students learn to ask questions by learning to take charge of their own learning process. Barrell described Wonder Questions as a way for students to ask open-ended questions that do not require the teachers to answer. They are encouraged to find the answers to their own questions. When students ask wonder questions, they are challenging the status quo and creating a critical consciousness about their own learning process.

These strategies are powerful for all students. Language learners, reluctant students, and shy/ quiet students often get left out of the conversations of their own learning process. They do not know how to navigate the education process like their successful classmates and they will opt out of the learning process by sitting quietly in the classroom. Their teachers may believe that they do not want to or cannot learn. When culturally responsive teachers use intentional strategies to bring them into the learning process, they learn how to take charge of and advocate their own learning process. They become engaged in the learning process while also bringing their voices and perspective into the classroom.

References

Barell, J. (2016). Why are the school buses always yellow?: Teaching for inquiry, K-8 (2 nd ed.) Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). But that's just good teaching! The case for culturally relevant pedagogy. Theory into Practice, (3), 159.

Culturally Responsive Assessment A lifelong educator, Dr. Laura Greenstein has served as a teacher and school leader, professor, and professional-development specialist. Her passion for excellence in assessment is evident in her numerous books, articles, and blogs on the topic:
When I looked around my classroom on the first day of school, it occurred to me that while I was busy complying with mandates and expectations such as ADA, CBA, ELL, IEP, and RTI/MTSS, my classroom was also transforming. Not just from whiteboards to smartboards and paper to tablets, but my students were also changing, becoming more diverse ethnically, socioeconomically, linguistically, and culturally. At this aha moment, I realized that assessment also needed to be refurbished.

Starting with the end in mind, as Grant Williams and Jay McTighe taught us through their Backward Design model, means translating big-pictures standards into achievable classroom learning intentions and assessable outcomes.

It means relying on a range of evidence in support of a spectrum of outcomes. It also requires adapting assessments to meet the needs of all learners. While this may not be practical with large-scale standardized measures, it is sensible, as well as more realistic, to make modifications locally. Here are three practices you'll want to consider for making assessment respectful, nonjudgmental, and adaptive for all learners.
1. FLEXIBLE CONTENT AND CONTEXT
Meaning and relevance are essential parts of all new learning, especially as students assimilate new ideas into existing schemas. Ms. Casey, an 8 th grade teacher, recently relocated to her dream home, high on a ridge in a remote area of Alaska. Her students in the lower states were inspired and cautioned by Into the Wild, but her native Alaskan students just ridiculed the character's ignorance. Julie of the Wolves and Flight of the Goose were more relevant options for them. She also adjusts math lessons to incorporate money management and measurement based on local commerce. Students rely on technology to design cost-effective fishing boats. Science includes pollution, climate change, the geography of earthquakes, and the role of electrons in the aurora borealis. Through interdisciplinary units, students make connections to previous learning and personalize their experiences. Over time and with practice, she envisions her students identifying scaffolds, supports, and resources they need to sustain their progress.

2. MULTIPLE MEASURES integrated throughout teaching and learning

PROCESS is primarily formative, beginning with recognizing incoming knowledge and skills, and including regular check-ins, tracking of progress. Strategies are interwoven with learning and rely on annotated checklists, find and fix the errors, and exit slips that implicitly support summative measures.

PRODUCTS of learning rely on consistent standards coupled with a choice of artifacts such as projects, exhibits, demonstrations, performances, multimedia summaries, collaborative, games, and nonlinguistic representations.

MEASURED by checklists, rubrics, self/peer assessment, learning logs, and anecdotal records.

3. GROWTH GAUGES

These meters build on prior learning, provide meaningful and useful insights into progress, offer informative feedback, along with opportunities for improvement. They are most effective when standards are deconstructed and paired with individualized levels of progress and proficiency. Representations and evidence of a student's learning clearly align with learning intentions. Students can choose speedometers, thermometers, or other indicators.

With an emphasis on improvement, scaffolds are embedded during learning. In doing so, students know where learning begins and can choose to jump right in, begin with a review of previous learning, or reach beyond the basics. Along the way, sequences can be adjusted and route guidance modified.

Growth gauges and progress trackers define goals and learning intentions, identify resources, and monitor progress. Collaboratively, the teacher and student determine the qualities of goal achievement using indicators such as:

Learning aims written in student's words

Descriptions of steps taken

Errors made and adjustments/action taken in response

Analysis of results and outcomes in relation to intentions

Recommendations for improvement

Explanation of next steps

The bottom line is that culturally responsive assessment supports the achievement of all learners and sustains each one on the path to personal success.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Culturally Responsive Assessment Rating Scale from Indiana University

"It starts with my own base of knowledge" Keisha Rembert is an 8th grade English and U.S. history teacher at Clifford Crone Middle School in Naperville, Ill. Keisha feeds her love of learning by continually refining her craft and has been the recipient of several grants affording her the opportunity to take courses at some of the world's most renowned universities. She was named Illinois' History Teacher of the Year for 2019:
It starts with my own base of knowledge. I must first educate myself. I must understand my bias and lean into the discomfort associated with understanding that I, too, carry bias. I must dive deep into history to understand any culture that I want to present in my classroom. I must understand the public narrative and then seek to find the personal narratives that really tell the true story of people, places, and events. I must seek to learn those stories that are often missing and rendered mute and invisible. I must center those stories in my classroom.

I must acknowledge any pain and trauma caused by a people, place, or event. I must find points of entry into the story for my students. I must humanize everyone. I must recognize the students who are in front of me, making them aware of their place, privilege, and power in the world through texts, activities, and, most importantly, the way I frame and talk about the topic.

Thanks to Kaitlin, Sean, Laura, Laura, and Keisha for their contributions!

Please feel free to leave a comment with your reactions to the topic or directly to anything that has been said in this post.
Just a reminder; you can subscribe and receive updates from this blog via email or RSS Reader. And if you missed any of the highlights from the first eight years of this blog, you can see a categorized list below. The list doesn't include ones from this current year, but you can find those by clicking on the "answers" category found in the sidebar.
Look for Part Three in a few days....

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'Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy Honors the Humanity & Identity of Young People' (Opinion)

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The new question-of-the-week is: What are specific ways to make lessons more culturally responsive and culturally sustaining? In Part One, Dr. Rocio del Castillo, Dr. Julia Stearns Cloat, Lisa Stringfellow, Valentina Gonzalez, Maurice McDavid, and Cathery Yeh shared their suggestions. You can listen to a 10-minute conversation I had with Rocio, Lisa, Valentina, and Maurice on my BAM!

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Resources for Developing Comprehensive Assessment System

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Resources for Developing Comprehensive Assessment System

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CA MTSS_Resources for Developing a Comprehensive Assessment System

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You may have heard the old saying, " Many make decisions by guessing or using their gut. They will be either very lucky or very wrong." Because of these wise words, educators have worked diligently over the last decade to learn how to obtain, gather, compile, view, analyze and use data to avoid leaving student success to being "very lucky" or "very wrong."

Fast forward to today, nobody could have predicted the vast amount of data available daily to teachers or foresee schools that try to use data to fix "every" issue. Unfortunately, this abundance of data can be overwhelming, and teachers can often feel exhausted when it comes to data use and practice in schools. That said, the ability to analyze data and collaboratively engage in data-driven decision-making is critical to MTSS ( Multi-Tiered System of Supports) processes, as they promote a culture of instruction catered to supporting students' needs. This process takes time and intentionality, but promoting these processes will significantly impact student success.

1. Check To Make Sure You're Using the Right Data

As discussed above, it can be overwhelming to consider all the student data available for teachers. So part of this process is knowing what data is most beneficial to use when evaluating student growth and at what level of intervention (Little, 2016).

MTSS is a system designed to support ALL students, but every piece of student data isn't necessary to provide effective support for all students. Teachers can use different parts of data to evaluate student growth depending on each student's instructional needs.

Starting at the broadest level, teachers should analyze the impact of teaching and learning for each student. A differentiated approach to core instruction (also known as Tier 1) is required within the MTSS framework, and ALL students receive Tier 1 instruction. Even if some students need additional support, they will still receive the day-to-day instruction representing the core curriculum.

Universal screening data (among other sources) provide much information that helps identify if students require additional support with academic, social-emotional learning (SEL) needs or behavior. As students are identified as needing support beyond core instruction at either the Tier 2 (strategic) or Tier 3 (intensive) levels, additional data sources should be used frequently to evaluate the impact of instruction and intervention on student growth.

The tables below outline what data can be used for this process within an MTSS framework, which students should be monitored at a given data level, and how often this data should be collected.

Types of Data Used in MTSS

Assessment Name

What

Who

When

Universal Screener

Standardized assessment used to identify students' areas of strength and need, offer a snapshot of progress over time

All students

3x per year

(Beginning, Middle, End of the year)

Diagnostic Assessment

Assessment tools used to identify a student's specific skills and knowledge

Students in need of Tier 2 and Tier 3 support

Follows universal screener after scores have been tiered, as needed if no progress is shown with intervention plans

Progress Monitors

Standardized assessments used to assess a student's progress towards a SMART goal, and determine the effectiveness of support provided

Students in need of Tier 2 and Tier 3 support

Weekly/Bi-weekly*

*Dependent on interventions and student's need

Intervention-Embedded Assessments

Progress monitor tools embedded into an intervention program. Only assesses a student's progress in the intervention, not towards a SMART goal (Not a progress monitor)

Students in need of Tier 2 and Tier 3 support

Dependent on an intervention program

Summative Assessments

Assessments used to measure a student's standards proficiency

All students

End of unit/year

Formative Assessments

Periodic "check-in" assessments, such as "pop quizzes" or "exit tickets'' used to guide Tier 1 instruction and mea sure students' understanding of standards. Determines if instruction is effective or needs to be adjusted during instructional period

All students

Ongoing throughout instructional period

Specific Data Used in MTSS

Tier 1: Differentiated Core Instruction

Tier 2: Strategic Support

Tier 3: Intensive Support

Academic

Universal screeners and or benchmark assessments (BOY, MOY, EOY), Curriculum-based assessments (aligned to curriculum pacing guides), quarterly grades

Social-Emotional Learning

SEL Screening assessments (BOY, MOY, EOY)

Behavior

School-based behavior tracking

Other ( data that can be used for Academic, SEL, and Behavior decision-making based on needs)

Attendance, teacher observations (can include aspects of Academic, SEL, and Behavior)

2. Check To Make Sure You're Analyzing MTSS Data Correctly

Using the data from the charts above allows educators to determine a student's success with given support and determine the student's Rate of Improvement (ROI) to facilitate better decision-making about the next instructional steps. This ROI analysis shows whether a student is making sufficient growth towards a specific goal and identify if a student's growth is either uncertain or insufficient towards the given goal.

The image below demonstrates what student data could look like if a student has made sufficient growth, uncertain growth, or insufficient growth towards a goal. To establish the ROI, it is essential to remember that multiple data points must be collected over a set period (as suggested in the charts above) to create a trend line that shows student growth.

3. Utilize Data-Based Decision Making in MTSS

Collaborative, data-based decision-making, and reflections are tenants of MTSS processes and are based on data collected. This collaboration takes place in three ways:

The School Leadership Meeting: This meets three times a year and discusses campus-wide trends found;

The Grade/Content Team Community Meeting: Monthly meetings are held during a dedicated grade-level team meeting to discuss student's areas of strength and need, review student's ROI, and determine instructional next steps for students receiving learning supports or targeted interventions at Tier 2 or Tier 3 levels; and

The Individual Student Support Meeting: During this meeting, individualized deep-dive problem-solving for students not making sufficient progress when supported by the Grade/Content Team Community Meeting.

LEARN MORE Download these quick guides to help you conduct effective meetings, optimize your use of time, and exit your MTSS meetings with clear action plans! ➡️ MTSS Meeting Guides

4. Fidelity in Practice is Important

A critical aspect of understanding and analyzing the data is evaluating whether the data is accurately portraying whether or not the curriculum, learning supports, interventions, assessments, and observations are carried out with fidelity. Fidelity, in this context, refers to "How closely prescribed procedures are followed and, in the context of schools, the degree to which educators implement programs, assessments, and implementation plans the way they were intended" (National Center for Intensive Intervention, N.D.).

The National Center for Intensive Intervention suggests many different questions regarding the elements of fidelity that can be considered when reflecting upon whether or not the student's ROI is accurate:

Did we adhere to a specific plan? How well do we stick to the prescribed procedures regarding implementing curriculum, assessment, learning supports, or interventions?

What was the student's exposure/duration with each learning support or intervention? Did any factors prevent the student from receiving the support as intended?

What was the quality of delivery? Were core content, assessment, learning supports, and interventions delivered with quality and best practices?

What was the student's role when receiving content/support/intervention? How engaged, attentive, and involved are the students in this intervention or activity?

Additional points for reflection:

What is the proven research base for the curriculum, learning support, or intervention? Is there a clear understanding of how to use the curriculum, learning support, or intervention, why to use it, how to use it in alignment with the evidence, and what the evidence is to provide the most efficient and effective experience for each student?

Did attendance play a role in the student's performance? Was either the student and educator in attendance for each delivery or were there lapses that could impact student performance?

Was the content, learning support, or intervention easy to access, or did it require a lot of pre-work? Did the materials need to implement the curriculum/learning support/intervention materials need to be purchased or created to implement the support to support efficiently?

➡️ Check out this MTSS Implementation Fidelity Reference Guide

These elements of fidelity for reflection should guide discussions during collaborative meetings and can also help to determine if the collected data about a given student is providing the most accurate picture of their performance and skill level (depending on answers to the questions above). This process of collaboratively using specific data with fidelity to make instructional decisions can be considered student-focused decision-making and is embedded within MTSS. Student-focused decision-making allows teachers to rely not on "luck" or their "gut" but on reliable evidence collected to take the next instructional steps.

MAIN TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS ARTICLE:

Too much data can be exhausting. It is important to curate the data sources needed (listed in the charts above) to make instructional decisions and provide support and intervention.

Specific types of data should be used to address different student needs.

Data decision-making should be done in a collaborative environment at specific meetings throughout the school year.

Data should be considered in conjunction with reflection on instructional fidelity to ensure that it provides the most accurate picture of student learning.

Collecting specific data points help determine a student's ROI (if an intervention leads to sufficient, uncertain, or insufficient growth). Adjustments to instruction and intervention for students should only be made after collecting multiple data points, and adjustments should be a collaborative decision. This type of data collection, embedded within MTSS, is also known as student-focused decision-making.

Learn more about utilizing MTSS data in this on-demand webinar: Best Practices on Interpreting Assessment Data

Citations

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4 Essential Reminders About Utilizing MTSS Data

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You may have heard the old saying, " Many make decisions by guessing or using their gut. They will be either very lucky or very wrong." Because of these wise words, educators have worked diligently over the last decade to learn how to obtain, gather, compile, view, analyze and use data to avoid leaving student success to being "very lucky" or "very wrong."

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MTSS School Meeting Guide and MTSS Content Team Guide

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A healthy MTSS system consists of 3 different types of meetings that have 3 different formats. Here are the School Leadership + Team Meeting Guides.

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California MTSS is built on the premise that universal support must be provided for all students while recognizing that some students may need supplemental support at various times and a few students may require more intensified support some of the time to be successful in the most inclusive and equ…