CURRICULUM FRAMEWORK
A K–12 curriculum built for mastery and independence
The Minnesota Learning Project organizes education around three developmental stages and nine cumulative strands. Each grade combines an accessible description of what students experience with coded technical benchmarks that can be reused by standards writers, schools, and policymakers.
How to read the curriculum
Plain-language layer
Grade purpose, topics, example projects, and mastery checks explain the experience in ordinary language for families, educators, and citizens.
Technical standards layer
Every representative standard retains its stable code — Grade.Strand.Anchor.Benchmark — so the framework can be used directly in standards development and policy.
Three stages of development
K–5
Discover & Master
Build fluent readers, confident mathematicians, broad knowledge, scientific curiosity, imagination, and the basic tools of learning.
GRADES 6–8
Understand & Reason
Teach systems thinking, algebra, experimentation, logic, evidence, statistics, coding, civic mechanics, and practical problem solving.
GRADES 9–12
Prepare for Independence
Combine rigorous academics with personal economics, careers, technology, civic knowledge, health, trades, and independent adult life.
Nine curriculum strands
- 1. Literacy & Communication
- 2. Mathematics & Quantitative Reasoning
- 3. Science & Engineering
- 4. Logic, Research & Information
- 5. History, Geography & Civic Mechanics
- 6. Practical Life & Personal Economics
- 7. Technology, Trades & Making
- 8. Health, Nutrition & Physical Readiness
- 9. Arts, Music & Creative Practice
Mastery gates
The framework establishes major competency gates at the end of Grade 5, before high school, and at graduation. Students who have not secured prerequisite foundations receive targeted additional instruction rather than simply advancing with an unstable base.
The culminating applied standard is Run Your Life, which tests whether students can integrate literacy, mathematics, reasoning, financial knowledge, communication, and practical judgment.
For technical readers
Curriculum benchmarks are intended to function as reusable technical specifications rather than narrative suggestions. The governing policy for standards, assessment, local control, and graduation competence is preserved in the canonical Policy Standards, including MLP-POL-02, MLP-POL-03, MLP-POL-05, and MLP-POL-07.
The Minnesota Learning Project 