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Home » Student Success » Learning Standards & Instructional Materials » Washington State Learning Standards Review

Washington State Learning Standards Review

Contact Information

For questions please email Standards Review.

Learning standards define what all students need to know and be able to do at each grade level. As required by state law (RCW 28A.655.070), OSPI develops the state’s learning standards and periodically revises them based on the student learning goals in RCW 28A.150.210.  

Standards Review Project Summary

OSPI has launched the Washington State Learning Standards Review project to: 

  • Establish a process to periodically review the state learning standards, and how those standards are used at a classroom, school, and district level to support student learning.  
  • Refine and prioritize the learning standards with a lens of clarification, integration, and understandability.  
  • Develop wrap-around guidance that clarifies for educators the opportunities within the learning standards for cultural responsiveness, inclusionary practices, universal design, support for multilingual learners, social-emotional learning, cross-content integration, and standards-based assessment practices.  
  • Develop an implementation plan for the following two to five years to help educators learn about and use the new resources and tools.  
Washington’s learning standards for English Language Arts (ELA) and Mathematics were adopted in 2011, and Science were adopted in 2013, and are now due for review. The ELA (along with the parallel SLA standards used in Spanish literacy instruction in Spanish-English dual-language programs), Math, and Science learning standards will be reviewed starting in the 2022–23 school year! Washington educators have gained valuable experience with the standards since they began teaching with them. That experience will be integral to this review. 

Phase 1: Reflection 

  • 12/1/22 Consultation with Dual Language Steering Committee
  • 12/9/22 Consultation with Multilingual Education Advisory Committee
  • 2/8/23–2/22/23 Teachers surveyed about ELA, SLA, math, and science standards
  • Late February 2023, District curriculum directors will be surveyed about ELA, SLA, math, and science standards.

Phase 2: Review Standards

Phase 2 is a review of ELA, SLA, Math, and Science Standards (March 2023–July 2024).

  • OSPI teams determine “take-aways” from the teacher and district administrator surveys.
  • With these in mind, content teams clarify and streamline the standards.
  • Using expertise from other programs/divisions at OSPI, content teams develop resources that integrate other content areas (social studies, arts, health and fitness, media literacy and digital citizenship, financial education, social-emotional learning) and provide on-ramps for inclusionary and culturally/linguistically responsive instruction.
  • OSPI consults with educators on draft documents.
  • OSPI teams develop a professional learning plan to share the resources developed.

Frequently Asked Questions

No. In this project, OSPI will refine and clarify the learning standards, not rewrite or upend them.

No. School districts should not abruptly change the professional learning they have planned for their staff and should feel confident moving forward with curriculum adoption. Educators’ instructional materials should not need to be changed, as this project is focused on refining and clarifying the standards, not rewriting them.

Updates and materials will be posted as the project progresses.