The Missouri Learning Priority Standards are not new standards, but a subset of the Missouri Learning Standards. Priority standards serve as a framework upon which specific teaching and learning decisions are built. They identify what students need to know but not how students learn or how teachers teach. Teachers can use these essential, enduring skills or concepts when developing units to help their students master the big ideas defined by the priority and supporting standards within their grade-level, content area or course. Teachers should have the ability to plan where in the curriculum standards are taught, when in the school year they are taught and how in the classroom they are emphasized, to allow for both a big picture and a granular look at how we are teaching concepts and skills. This perspective leads to the very conversations that strengthen instructional practices and lead to student growth over time.

Priority standards can be used as a tool to help educators reflect on their current local curriculum to determine if it is grade-appropriate, locally responsive and includes the sufficient amount of rigor. This means the curriculum provides opportunities for students to demonstrate understanding beyond the discrete recall level, and includes tasks that promote sense making of expectations and application in a broader context. Using the priority standards prevents teaching individual expectations in isolation, supports making connections not only within the current year, but beyond, and promotes the understanding that all expectations are necessary to prepare students for future opportunities. The big ideas/concepts highlighted in the priority standards are crucial to mastery of the MLS. Prioritizing certain expectations over others does not mean eliminating remainder from instruction or from assessment.

The Missouri priority standards focus on students accessing the content knowledge necessary for their future. It is important to note that priority standards do not lower expectations of rigor for local or statewide assessment. Instead, they play a role in the degree of focus in assessments by targeting areas that provide students with the opportunity to demonstrate understanding and promoting item types that will model this opportunity for students to demonstrate all elements of understanding.