Assessing the Alignment with the Common Core: Coherence, Rigor, and Focus of Mathematics Instructional Materials

This study explores the assessment of the alignment of mathematics instructional materials with the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM). First, focus, rigor, and coherence, identified in TIMSS studies and also established for CCSSM, were chosen as criteria of alignment. Then, the CCSSM Graph (Zimba, 2012) was used as a yardstick to which the mathematics instructional materials were compared. Textbook content was coded on lesson level. Indexes for each of the three criteria of focus, rigor and coherence were proposed, which provide a promising way to assess the alignment of the mathematical instructional materials with the CCSSM. As an example, we compared the alignment of six Grade 1 textbooks with the CCSSM.