High-Quality Education
with aligned curriculum & teaching
with aligned curriculum & teaching
We believe all students entering and exiting any Madera Unified school will leave with the same quality education regardless of origin, neighborhood, the school they attend, or the teacher they have because the expectation is that all students learn at high levels. To ensure this, we provide instructional systems based upon internationally benchmarked student performance standards, ensure they exemplify the elements of the Madera Unified Graduate Profile and the high expectations for all students. This includes a curriculum framework that is coherent, rigorous, culturally relevant and scaffolded across K-12. Careful planning happens through collaboration between teachers and administration as part of Professional Learning Communities (PLC) that determine research-based instruction and assessment practices.
Design Principles
Madera Unified will develop and implement a Guaranteed and Viable curriculum aligned to the state’s curriculum frameworks in a way that is coherent, rigorous, culturally relevant and scaffolded TK-12.
● Course and/or grade level descriptions: Syllabi and instructional materials are based on the standards and frameworks and attend to vertical and horizontal articulation.
● Units of Study Scope and Sequence (teacher-developed)
o present appropriate Opportunities for student choice within teacher developed lessons so that students’ learning experiences remain personally relevant
o Make clear connections across the curricular disciplines
o Attend to relevance and culturally responsive teaching elements
o Include executive summary in parent/student-friendly language to share expectations with community
● Aligned instructional materials
o Enrichment and intervention throughout content and at every level to ensure student academic growth
Teachers and administrators will collaborate as Professional Learning Communities (PLC) to implement evidence-based instructional practices
Teacher PLCs will use the GVC for their course to lesson/unit design in order to create meaningful learning, integrate collaborate structures, construct CFAs, and effectively analyze data to improve their teaching practices.
Model through teacher-led professional development opportunities and practiced through instructional rounds to ensure internal calibration. Ongoing, embedded professional learning around these practices will become an integral part of our district culture.
Focus on text, both consumption and production (reading and writing), in all content areas including digital lesson delivery and assessments.
Aligned behavioral programs through which students understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions.
Students will utilize Graduate Profile rubrics throughout their TK-12 education to monitor progress. This will ensure that students have foundational knowledge of the elements before progressing into secondary education.
Assessment data in all forms: formative, interim, and summative should be utilized to inform instructional practice. Data from assessments should be analyzed in a timely manner and revisited regularly with a focus on monitoring site, classroom, and individual student growth. Assessment practices should include all stakeholders: district and site leadership, teachers, students, and families; teacher and student efficacy in particular are vital to improving student achievement. Ongoing, embedded professional learning around these practices will become an integral part of our district culture.
● Formative Assessment which is:
o an integral part of instruction
o keyed to progressions
o ongoing, embedded, checking for understanding used to modify instruction
o used to diagnose student understanding
● Interim Assessments which are:
o periodic, standards-based, external, normative
o used to provide a longitudinal view of student achievement in relative to state and nationwide achievement
o used to provide checkpoints for standards-based student achievement to inform instruction and assist stakeholders in goal setting
● Summative assessments which are:
o standards-based, external, not-normative
o based on curriculum
o rigorous, authentically aligned to standards, relevant, reliable, and valid
o Performance Tasks, aligned to the Graduate Profile are structured at grades 3, 6, 8, and the culminating Portfolio Defense of grade 12.
How do these Design Principles reflect the comparative research?
These design Principles align with what NCEE sees in top-performing education jurisdictions. High-performing education systems have a common curriculum set to very high standards. The curriculum is organized by grade span and by subject, even if the expectation is that teachers design interdisciplinary projects. The standards establish a progression through each subject that is logical, consistent, developmentally appropriate, and based on what we know about how young people learn. The core curriculum is broad: it includes not only literacy and mathematics, but also world languages, civics, history, science, art, music, and health and wellness. But it also covers the subjects in enough depth so students build the conceptual frameworks that allow for retrieval and application of knowledge. This allows them to develop disciplinary thinking; for example, the beginning of the ability to think and reason as a historian or mathematician. In addition to developing both a broad and deep understanding, students are expected to be able to apply concepts from many disciplines to address real- world problems, have the capacity to reason, and think critically and creatively.