The Georgia Performance Standards (GPS), Georgia’s new curriculum, will be phased in over the next four years.  These performance standards go into much greater depth than the current Quality Core Curriculum.  The GPS identifies the content to be taught and incorporates suggested performance tasks, student work samples, and teacher commentary. 

The performance standards provide clear expectations for instruction, rigorous examples of student work, and assessment.  They define the level of work that demonstrates achievement of the standards and identify the skills needed to problem-solve, reason, communicate and make connections with other information.  We encourage teachers to incorporate extra activities and projects designed to stimulate critical thinking and in-depth learning.  In addition, the performance standards will guide teachers as they assess learning, thus, helping our students move efficiently toward mastery of the standards.

The Carroll County School System examined the GPS in the areas of English/Language Arts, Science and Math.  Teachers with expertise in these content areas developed a curriculum map and content maps for each grade level/subject.  These maps specifically address the performance standards and elements. The format design is aligned to our school system’s initiative, Learning Focused Strategies. 

Carroll County Curriculum Maps aredesigned to ensure the continuity of instruction between schools and across grade levels.  Carroll County Content Maps identify the major topics, or the Big Picture, of the GPS. These topics are essential in order for our students to develop enduring understandings of the content.  The content maps identify specific Unit Concepts, Essential Questions, and Vocabulary. Mastery of the content will assure our students have an enduring understanding and can answer the Overarching Essential Question. From these unit concepts, essential questions, and vocabulary, teachers will develop units for instruction.

I would like to thank all of the K-12 English/Language Arts Teachers; K-12 Science Teachers and K-12 Math Teachers for diligently working to develop both the Curriculum Maps and Content Maps aligned to the Georgia Performance Standards.  Thank you also to Mrs. Beleta Anderson, Director of Elementary Instruction, and Mrs. Karen Suddeth, Director of Middle Grades and Secondary Instruction for their leadership in coordinating and supervising this project.  This new curriculum will help us focus on instruction so that we can continue to improve student learning and raise student achievement.

Sincerely,
Kathleen M. Rogers
Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum, Instruction, and Student Achievement