High Quality Curriculum
Standards-aligned, culturally responsive learning materials help put an equitable learning experience within reach.
Choosing a High-Quality Curriculum
Choosing a curriculum is a school-based decision — one that takes into account the needs of a school’s staff, students, and community first and foremost.
These needs are undeniably unique and dynamic, and at the same time, there are qualities that many curricula share that help support student success and create better learning conditions across this diversity of needs.
“High-quality” is a designation that CPS uses for any curriculum, including the district’s Skyline curriculum, that has the attributes identified as the most impactful on student success. There are six specific components to this distinction which ladder up to a broader definition — a high-quality curriculum is both standards-aligned and culturally responsive.
Components of High-Quality Curriculum
Standards-Aligned
Curriculum aligns with grade-level standards, district foundational frameworks, and research-based best practices. Curriculum supports rigorous learning experiences that are academically, intellectually, and personally challenging.
Horizontally-Aligned Across Instructional and Assessment Materials
The curricular instructional and assessment materials are aligned to ensure a coherent progression from instruction to how students demonstrate knowledge. Lesson-level, unit, and interim assessments work in coordination, providing a balanced assessment system to guide students’ learning and teachers’ instruction.
Vertically-Aligned Across Grade Bands
Curriculum is intentionally designed to provide a continuous learning experience and progression of skills and knowledge for students across each grade band: early childhood (PK-2), elementary school (3-5), middle school (6-8), and high school (9-12).
Accessible for All Learners
Curriculum provides teachers with multiple pathways that sequence, scaffold, and accelerate content to ensure that all students are being supported at grade level. Curriculum provides multiple means of engagement, representation, and options for expression.
Supportive of Students’ Social-Emotional Learning
Curriculum is designed to support the development of a classroom community that is inclusive of all students. Curriculum provides teachers with resources to nurture emotional resilience and create an environment where every student feels valued and empowered to succeed.
Culturally Responsive
Curriculum represents the multicultural, multilingual, socioeconomically diverse communities in Chicago, and is intentionally designed to draw on students’ lived experiences. Curriculum promotes students’ identities, cultures, languages, and literacies. Curriculum is free from bias and inclusive across race, religion, ethnicity, language, ability, sexuality, and gender.
Our District Curriculum
Skyline is Chicago Public Schools’ universal PreK-12 high-quality curriculum, built in partnership with hundreds of CPS teachers. Skyline is available to all District-managed schools across subject areas and grade bands at no direct cost to schools. By alleviating the school-level cost of using high-quality curriculum, a major barrier to expanded student access is removed. The district is also providing a framework for schools to determine if their current or desired curriculum meets the high-quality distinction.
To ensure the Skyline curriculum remains current and responsive to students, CPS is committed to annual revisions, improvements, and additions to the resources. CPS also regularly seeks to partner with local institutions to enrich our curriculum and provide students with engaging, diverse digital learning experiences.
Implementing Skyline
Curriculum
The Skyline Curriculum provides all CPS schools with the tools and resources to achieve high-quality curriculum adoption.
Professional Learning
If you are a teacher using Skyline, we invite you to participate in the year-long curriculum-based professional learning series specifically designed for your Skyline course.
Implementation Framework
The Skyline Implementation Framework supports school teams with understanding the practices and resources critical to strong curriculum implementation.
Need Help?
If you or a member of your team encounter challenges using Skyline, please visit the Service Now website and open a support ticket, or simply call 773-553-3925 and a support ticket will be opened for you.