How standards alignment works
Every alignment badge is a claim. Here is how we make it.
When a question, topic, or lesson on Principle shows a standards badge — like "Aligns to C3.D2.Civ.1.9-12" or "Aligns to MD.CG-D.2 (Maryland 2025)" — that is a claim about your kid's standards coverage. You should be able to see how we decided that.
What a standard is
Education standards describe what a student should know or be able to do at a particular grade level. They are written by national bodies like the National Council for the Social Studies and the College Board, and by state departments of education — every U.S. state, the District of Columbia, and the territories publishes their own.
A standard has a code, a title, and a description that names what students must learn. Every standard we cover is stored as its own record, with its official source URL and the year it was last revised.
What "aligned" means here
When a question, topic, or lesson on Principle shows a standards badge, that badge means we believe the content lets a learner do the thing the standard asks them to do — not that the content shares a keyword with the standard.
A question that mentions a "court ruling" is not automatically aligned to every standard with "court" in its title. The connection has to be real.
The process
Five steps from content to alignment
Tools speed up the work. They do not replace these checks. A real human-reviewable connection between the content and the standard's stated requirement is the only thing that creates an alignment.
- 1
Read what the standard actually requires
We take the framework's published description at face value. If it says "compare the powers of state and federal governments," we look for content that lets a learner compare those powers — not content that merely mentions powers exist. We use the framework's own published materials and cite the source URL for every standard we cover.
- 2
Look for content that addresses the requirement
Given a question, topic, or lesson, we look across our standards library — national frameworks plus all 50 states, D.C., and the territories — for the standards whose requirements that piece of content can plausibly help a learner meet. We start broadly.
- 3
Verify the connection is real
For every potential connection, we check whether the content actually teaches the named concept (not just a word from its title), whether a learner can apply it to civic power and decisions the way the standard expects, whether the content includes sources a learner can interpret, whether a question format can measure whether they met the standard, and whether the complexity and reading load fit the grade band. If a connection falls short on any of these, we do not insert the alignment — even if there is a tempting keyword overlap.
- 4
Mark how strong the connection is
Primary connections mean the content is a direct instructional vehicle for the standard. Supporting connections mean the content reinforces the standard but is not mainly about it. Contextual connections give useful background but do not teach the standard — those we do not show by default; they appear only in curated educator collections. Anything weaker than supporting does not get a badge.
- 5
Write down why
Every alignment we make includes a short note explaining why. The note names the instructional connection in one sentence, identifies the specific content fact or question format that satisfies the standard, and acknowledges what the content does not cover. If you click an alignment badge, you can read the note. We think you should see the reasoning, not just the conclusion.
What we will not do
A few practices are common in ed-tech alignment work that we deliberately avoid.
- We do not claim alignment based on keywords alone.
- We do not claim alignment based on standards we have not read. If a state has not published per-standard performance expectations, we say so in the alignment note rather than make one up.
- We do not auto-link content to every state framework that resembles a national one. Each state framework is reviewed against the content individually.
- We do not hide alignments we are uncertain about. Anything weaker than supporting does not get a badge.
How alignment stays current
Standards change. States revise frameworks, the College Board updates AP courses, new graduation requirements take effect. We re-review our alignments when a state or framework publishes a revised version, when a piece of Principle content is materially enhanced, and when an educator, parent, or student tells us we got an alignment wrong.
That last one matters. If you teach in a state where we have aligned content to a standard and you believe the alignment is incorrect — or if we have missed a standard your curriculum requires — please flag it.
What we cover
We index national frameworks — the C3 Framework, the NCSS thematic standards, the AP US Government and Politics framework, the NAMLE Core Principles of Media Literacy Education, and the Common Core literacy strands relevant to social studies — and the state frameworks of all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. territories as published by each state's department of education or equivalent body.
You can browse the full list of frameworks and the standards within each at the standards directory.
Doing diligence on Principle for a school or district?
If you are a curriculum director or procurement officer and need more detail than this page provides — methodology specifics, audit trails, review cadence — please contact us directly. We are happy to provide it.