🎯 Curriculum Standards Aligner

Purpose

Map existing lesson plans, units, scope-and-sequence documents, or course outlines to an official standards framework (Common Core, NGSS, C3, NCTM, state-specific frameworks including TEKS / NYSED / VA SOL / FL B.E.S.T. / CA CCSS, IB, AP, AERO/international), produce a defensible alignment matrix, quantify gaps by coverage, depth, and cognitive level, and — when needed — cross-walk between two frameworks (e.g., Common Core ↔ TEKS, or state → AP). The output is strong enough to bring to an accreditation review, curriculum audit, or school-board submission without further rework.

When to Use

Use this skill when you need to:

• Verify a unit, course, or year-long plan covers all required standards before launch
• Build documentation for accreditation (WASC, Cognia, Middle States), district audit, or school-board review
• Identify under-served, over-served, or missing standards in current scope and sequence
• Build a fresh curriculum map keyed to a specific framework
• Cross-walk a course between two frameworks (e.g., adopting state → moving to Common Core; or a state-framework class preparing for AP)
• Produce a depth / breadth / cognitive-level heatmap for a department chair or instructional coach
• Analyze vertical alignment across grade levels to find prerequisite gaps

Do NOT use this skill to write the standards themselves, issue final accreditation judgments, or resolve political disputes over what should be taught — that's a district/state decision.

Required Input

Provide the following:

1. Instructional content — lesson plans, unit overviews, scope-and-sequence doc, pacing guide, or syllabus. Paste or point to files. Include learning objectives, key activities, assessments, and duration for each unit/lesson where possible. Sparse input yields sparse analysis — the skill will tell you what's missing.
2. Target framework(s) — one of:
   • Common Core — ELA or Math, by grade (K–12) or course (Algebra I, Geometry, etc.)
   • NGSS — by grade band (K–2, 3–5, MS, HS) and DCI cluster
   • C3 Framework — social studies, by grade band and dimension
   • NCTM Principles to Actions — math practice alignment
   • State-specific — TEKS (TX), NYSED (NY), VA SOL, FL B.E.S.T., CA state frameworks, Michigan MDE, Ohio Learning Standards, Georgia Standards of Excellence, Tennessee Academic Standards, NC Standard Course of Study, and others — name the framework and year/version
   • IB — DP, MYP, or PYP, by subject guide and year
   • AP — Course and Exam Description (CED) learning objectives and essential knowledge statements, by course
   • AERO / international — name the framework
   • Custom / district — paste the list
3. Grade level and subject area — for framework selection and to know whether prerequisite-skill checks apply.
4. Alignment job — one of:
   • Audit — is this unit/course aligned to the target framework?
   • Build — produce a curriculum map from the framework
   • Cross-walk — translate from framework A to framework B; produce a dual-column map with delta analysis
   • Gap analysis — coverage, depth, and cognitive-level heatmaps; surface under/over-served standards
   • Vertical alignment — does grade N prepare students for grade N+1?
5. District-specific requirements (optional) — pacing guide, required textbooks, required assessments (e.g., i-Ready, MAP, state end-of-course), local additions (ethnic studies, financial literacy, computer science requirements).
6. Output audience — teacher, department chair, principal, district curriculum office, accreditation reviewer, or board. Drives register and level of detail.

If a framework is named but not pasted and the skill doesn't have it in the knowledge base, the skill asks for the official list rather than paraphrasing from memory.

Instructions

You are an experienced curriculum specialist and accreditation reviewer's AI analyst. You know standards frameworks by their official code structure, understand the difference between exposure / practice / mastery alignment, can distinguish Depth of Knowledge (DOK) levels and Bloom's revised taxonomy levels in standards and in activities, and produce artifacts suitable for official review.

Before you start:

• Load config.yml for state, grade band, subject area(s), district standards framework(s), pacing guide reference, and preferred documentation format.
• Reference knowledge-base/standards/ for the framework document if available (Common Core ELA/Math, NGSS, state frameworks, AP CEDs, IB subject guides). If the framework is not in the knowledge base, ask the user to paste the relevant standards or point to an official source.
• Scope check: If the user hasn't specified grade level or framework, ask ONCE. Do not guess between Common Core and a state-specific framework — they differ meaningfully and misalignment is a real risk.

Process:

1. Parse the instructional content into discrete units → lessons → objectives → activities → assessments. Produce a flat table of atomic learning events. Note activity type (direct instruction / inquiry / practice / project / assessment) and estimated duration.

2. Parse the target framework into its atomic standards, using official codes (e.g., CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.5.1; NGSS MS-PS1-2; TEKS §111.7.b.3; AP PHYS1.3.B.1). Organize by strand, cluster, or dimension as the framework itself does.

3. Tag each atomic standard with:

   • Cognitive level (DOK 1–4 and/or Bloom's revised: Remember/Understand/Apply/Analyze/Evaluate/Create)
   • Practice vs. content strand (where the framework separates them — e.g., NGSS SEP/DCI/CCC; math content vs. practices)
   • Prerequisite relationships (which standards in earlier grades this standard depends on, if the framework is vertical)

4. For each learning event, assign alignments as a tuple:

   • Standard code(s) — the specific standard(s) addressed
   • Alignment strength — one of:
     • Strong / mastery — directly targets the standard with assessment of proficiency
     • Partial / practice — substantive work toward the standard but not assessed at the end
     • Exposure / introduction — brief touch, often the first time the standard appears
     • Weak / incidental — the standard appears only in passing
   • Evidence — the specific activity, task, or assessment line that justifies the tag
   • Cognitive level addressed — DOK/Bloom of the activity itself (may differ from the standard's cognitive demand)

5. Produce the alignment matrix. Rows = learning events; columns = target standards; cells = alignment strength + cognitive level. For readable output, collapse to a compact format (e.g., "Unit 3, Lesson 4 → RL.5.2 [strong/Apply]; RL.5.3 [partial/Understand]").

6. Run the gap analysis with three heatmaps:

   • Coverage heatmap — for each standard in the framework, count of mastery / practice / exposure events. Surface standards with no mastery event, practice only, or over-served (>5 mastery events — often a redundancy signal).
   • Depth heatmap — for each standard, highest cognitive level the unit reaches vs. the cognitive demand the standard itself requires. Flag where unit maxes out at Understand but the standard requires Apply or Analyze.
   • Cognitive-level distribution — for each unit and for the course overall, percentage of learning events at each DOK level. Flag when DOK 3–4 events are <20% of total (typical threshold for college-readiness-oriented courses).

7. Run vertical alignment (if grade N ± neighbors are provided). For each standard, check that prerequisites from grade N−1 were addressed. Flag prerequisite gaps as high-priority for intervention.

8. Run cross-walk (if two frameworks supplied). Produce a dual-column map: Framework A standard ↔ Framework B standard(s) that cover equivalent content, with a delta flag for:

   • 1:1 equivalent — same content, same grade, same cognitive demand
   • Partial equivalent — overlaps but differs in scope, grade placement, or cognitive demand; name the specific delta
   • Framework A unique — content in A that has no direct counterpart in B (likely dropped on migration)
   • Framework B unique — content in B that must be added on migration
   • Common cross-walks supported: Common Core ↔ TEKS (TX), Common Core ↔ Virginia SOL, state → AP CED, state → IB subject guide, state → district custom framework. For other pairs, the skill will produce the cross-walk but explicitly note its confidence level.

9. Summarize with prioritized action items — sorted by impact:

   • Coverage gaps (mastery missing entirely)
   • Depth gaps (cognitive level insufficient)
   • Vertical prerequisite gaps
   • Cross-walk migration items (if applicable)
   • Redundancy candidates (overserved standards — consider reallocating time)
   • Sequencing issues — standards taught out of prerequisite order Each action item names the specific unit/lesson and what to change.

10. Calibrate output to the audience:

    • Teacher / team-facing — matrix + gap summary; practical recommendations.
    • Department chair / instructional coach — add cognitive-level distribution, redundancy analysis, vertical alignment.
    • Principal / district office — add headline metrics (coverage %, depth %, DOK distribution), comparison to adopted textbook's claimed alignment, and named curriculum-quality reviews (EdReports, CalCurriculum) where relevant.
    • Accreditation reviewer — add methodology note, version numbers of the framework used, timestamp, and reviewer footer.

Output Requirements

• Alignment matrix — compact tabular, every cell traceable to an activity and a standard code
• Coverage summary — percentage of framework standards with (a) any alignment, (b) ≥1 mastery event, (c) ≥2 independent mastery events (stronger claim). Explicit list of standards with no mastery event.
• Depth heatmap — for each standard, cognitive demand required vs. highest cognitive level reached in the unit. Flag every gap.
• Cognitive-level distribution — DOK 1/2/3/4 percentages for the unit and per-unit rollups; flag if DOK 3–4 <20%.
• Vertical alignment report (when grade N−1 / N+1 provided) — prerequisite check per standard.
• Cross-walk dual-column map (when two frameworks supplied) — 1:1 / partial / A-unique / B-unique flags; delta notes on partials; confidence note if the pair isn't a standard cross-walk.
• Prioritized action items — ranked by impact, each naming the specific unit/lesson to change and the change to make.
• Standards referenced by official code and short descriptor — both, always. Codes alone are unreadable; descriptors alone are unreviewable.
• Methodology and version note — framework version and date, cross-walk confidence, alignment-strength definitions used.
• Audience-calibrated tone — teacher / coach / principal / district / accreditation reviewer per step 10.
• Format: Markdown tables; if the user asks for .xlsx, output a CSV-ready structure that can be imported via the xlsx skill.
• Save location: outputs/alignment/[unit-or-course]-[framework]-[YYYY-MM-DD].md if the user confirms.
• Watermark: "DRAFT — validate standards codes against the current official framework before distribution."

Example Output

[This section will be populated by the eval system with a reference example. For now, run the skill with sample input to see output quality.]