Having an in-depth understanding of states’ standards and how they’re evolving is a fundamental step for companies hoping to sell into the K-12 market.
And experts caution against falling into two traps that can hurt business: assuming what works for one state works for others, and writing content around what’s on the books today instead of looking forward.
In the 15 years since the first wave of states adopted Common Core State Standards, many have drifted away from the math and reading benchmarks that were intended to create a shared baseline for what students should know in each grade.
Over time, state lawmakers have added, deleted, and moved around content in accordance with the goals and needs of their states. And also in reaction to political support for, or opposition to, the Common Core. Some, like Texas and Florida, are continuing to move significantly away from the standards’ vision.
Whether those changes are driven by new findings related to best practices, emerging technology, or other factors, understanding and fulfilling each state’s version of K-12 standards is key for education companies looking to provide products or services to schools.
Getting that right is typically the first barrier to entry in making a sale. However, tailoring content for each state market can be persnickety and time-consuming for companies.
“Every RFP you’ve ever seen talks about showing alignment to standards,” said Gina Faulk, general manager of EdGate. “It’s pretty vital even for a small startup company to have the ability to show that. Otherwise, I just don’t think [a state or district is] going to look at your content at all.”
About This Analyst
Gina Faulk is the general manager for EdGate, where she focuses on strategic business development, B2B and industry partnerships. EdGate provides education standards and alignment services and SAAS to over 250 clients across all K-12 subjects. Previously, she served as business partner manager at Learning.com, where her role included managing several state adoptions, and as the U.S. sales director at Macmillan Publishing Solutions and Interactive Composition Corporation.
Companies don’t necessarily need to start from scratch for each state, but they do need to tailor their offerings for the state they’re targeting, said Faulk, whose organization provides standards-alignment services and reviews to companies and states.
EdWeek Market Brief recently spoke to Faulk about how state standards have evolved over the last decade, which states have become particularly distinct in the benchmarks they demand, and what that means for education companies.
The following has been edited for length and clarity.
As someone who helps education companies tailor their products to meet these different state standards, what advice do you have for vendors?
I think [tailoring products to each state’s standards] is imperative. We do help companies as they are getting ready to submit their materials for adoption, either at the state level or even at the smaller district level. It’s always a requirement to show how your content aligns to standards.
From the very get-go, when you’re writing your content, you should be writing to the standards. And usually we see that our clients are choosing a market. So they might say, we’ve chosen these few states to really focus on. If you are a startup, you’re probably going to choose a few states to focus on, and that could be a smaller market to test out and pilot, but they’re choosing that state and writing their content to align to their specific needs.
Can you give me an example of what that tailoring looks like for companies?
It’s all about concepts. The standards drill down to concepts. An example is a video lesson that could be about adding fractions with like denominators. If you can figure out that’s a concept taught in Grade 4 in Texas, and then in Georgia, it’s using the same language and same teaching concept [elsewhere], we can just crosswalk it over to that standard in [Georgia].
The numbering of the standards [can be] different, and the way they’re structured is different for each state. Also, it could be [about] bulking up. There’s times when actually there’s more in one state versus the other.
From the very get-go, when you’re writing your content, you should be writing to the standards.
A company might send us their course and say they’ve already done their alignment to, let’s say, Florida. So they say, we believe that our content meets [Florida standards] — that it’s meeting the standard that says [the lesson should teach] carrying capacities, limiting factors, and growth curves.
We might say, no, we disagree with that. The lab does not make a direct link to carrying capacities, limiting factors, or population growth curves. They’re trying to push their content into that pigeon hole, but actually now it doesn’t align, and now they need to expand and elaborate and rewrite that content.
There might be more elaborations within certain states. [The standard] might sound quite similar from one state to another, but it’s actually not, because there’s a comma there and they ask for one more thing. So it’s just slightly different enough to make you have to rewrite your piece of content.
Is this work that AI could help with in the future?
AI can help us do our jobs, but there’s so much that can be subjective about our work, too.
Like if the words they used in [a] video lesson actually do cover the standard pretty well, but AI couldn’t pick that up properly. Or vice versa — that AI said [a piece of content is] meeting that standard, but there’s not enough examples in the lesson that you’ve created to actually meet the standard.
How do you see the use of state standards evolving in the next few years?
Even a decade ago, it was important to make sure that you had your state standards alignments. So it’s been consistent.
Something that I think is interesting is that with the potential closure of the U.S. Department of Education, that’s all about sending it back to the states in regard to standards. Standards were already with the states. So for us, nothing is really changing. The states always had control over their own state standards and what they think is the most important concepts to be teaching in their classrooms.
That said, if a state feels it’s important to teach social-emotional learning, it seems that would be in the power of state to decide. Or AI, or CTE.
Market Brief has reported on rising state and local interest in promoting career pathways and CTE, generally. Are you seeing a new interest in CTE standards?
Going forward, I think CTE will become bigger and bigger.
Every state has its own labor industry and their own economy and areas in which they think their students should be training to become adept. If you have a large population of people retiring, for example, maybe it’s more [focused on] healthcare [and] nursing.
For instance, in Virginia, [the academic benchmarks in CTE are] vast. Whereas other states might have a smaller set of CTE standards, [Virginia] just really went wild with their CTE. But every state has their own.
So it’s important that they make those decisions about the areas in which they think that their students should be focusing and studying for, because there’s going to be jobs in those areas. So that’s why we see such huge differences in the CTE standards, in particular.
How would you assess the current place of SEL, and AI, in states’ academic standards?
Even though there’s a lot of talk about whether [SEL] will be going away, a lot of times, states are just changing the language. So it’s not SEL, but maybe character development, or college and career readiness. So it’s being rebranded.
I’m asked about AI: Are AI concepts being introduced into the standards? Yes, but it’s more like [states] feel a duty to admit its existence. So it’s pretty limited right now, but it is being added.
In general, how quickly do state standards change?
There’s about a five-year lag time where [lawmakers] are proposing new standards, and then they have to go through the approval process. There are hearings, and there is public commentary about those standards. So by the time the standards are changed, there’s going to be new technology.
It is something that you can kind of rely on to be consistent, but that [lag] is something that publishers, as they’re writing content, should look out for: What are the standards that have been adopted for 2027 and will be implemented in 2027? So I’m writing to those standards instead of the current standards.
It’s not really about cutting-edge. And five years is enough time for entire tech companies and products to manifest and then die out.
How would you sum up the influence of the Common Core State Standards today?
One question I get asked a lot is: “I have my Common Core alignment. Can I use that?”
By the time the standards are changed, there’s going to be new technology.
And our answer is always: That’s a great place to start, but it’s not going to cut it, because every state is going to require you to align to their specific state standards.
In some cases, they won’t even look at your material if it is aligned to Common Core. The moment they see the words “Common Core,” they might say, case closed. It has to be more specific.
Are there any states that stand out in your mind as having moved particularly far away from Common Core?
For sure Texas, because they have the TEKS [the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills] standards.
There are a lot of breakouts, lots of subsets within the TEKS standards. They also have new requirements and their [unique] suitability rubrics … There’s a whole package of information that you have to look at when you’re going for adoptions in Texas.
And then the Florida B.E.S.T. [Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking] standards, too. I would say those are quite unique.
When you pull up the Florida standards, it says [that they have] a commitment to eliminating Common Core, ensuring high-quality academic standards, and raising the bar for civic literacy. So they’re saying right there that it’s the commitment to move away from Common Core.
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The Texas standards too. Right in their suitability rubrics, it says you must show that your instruction materials are not designed to comply with Common Core.
How far away from Common Core have these states moved?
[Using EdGate’s online comparison tool,] Texas only matches Common Core 20%, so it’s really low. Florida is 22% aligned to Common Core, whereas I’m in Washington State, we match Common Core by over 80%.
Alabama matches Common Core by 59% … They originally adopted Common Core and then they passed a bill that would end the use of it.
In Alaska, they say they are not Common Core, but they match by over 80% for math and language arts.
Are there other states that have moved notably far away from Common Core?
Another one that we noted was Missouri. They withdrew from Common Core and … they’re substantially different than what they originally adopted. Idaho is on the list as well. They’re very different than what they used to be.
And Tennessee. There, a fair amount of the verbiage and categories are similar, but they’re very distinct now.
It’s quite a few, and quite a few big markets too, that folks are interested in working in.