The purpose of the learning targets is three-fold: 1) to communicate the Utah Core Standard of Mathematics to teachers, parents, and students, 2) to divide the standards into measurable "chunks", and 3) to communicate the emphasis that should be placed on each learning target.

The learning targets were developed during the 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 school years. During this time groups of teacher-leaders, Curriculum Fellows, and all 5th grade teachers throughout Weber School District were given multiple opportunities to provide feedback on these targets. The learning targets are the basis of teaching, assessing, and reporting in all WSD 5th grade classrooms.