Parent resources

The Texas Education Agency explains that because families move within the state, Texas adopted a single set of curriculum standards used in all of its public schools. Those standards are the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, or TEKS. They spell out what students should learn in each grade or course, and they are adopted by the State Board of Education after input from educators and the public (Texas Education Agency, Curriculum Standards).

The TEKS are state rules. They are published in Title 19 of the Texas Administrative Code, Part 2, in chapters organized by subject: Chapter 110 is English language arts and reading, 111 is mathematics, 112 is science, and 113 is social studies. TEA posts compiled grade-level PDFs for kindergarten through grade 5, and the full chapter text is available from the Texas Secretary of State's Texas Administrative Code portal (Texas Secretary of State, Texas Administrative Code, Title 19).

A citation such as 19 TAC 111.5(b)(4)(F) reads from the outside in. 19 TAC is Title 19 of the Administrative Code. 111.5 is the section for grade 3 mathematics. (b) is the knowledge-and-skills subsection. (4) is the fourth strand, number and operations. (F) is the specific student expectation, in this case recalling multiplication facts to 10 × 10. Every Baccare activity lists the citations it practices so you can look up exactly what the state expects.

TEA notes that in the standards, a statement that uses the word including lists content students must master, while a phrase introduced by such as is an illustrative example rather than a requirement (Texas Education Agency, TEKS introductions). That distinction is useful when you read a standard with your child's teacher: the includings are the non-negotiables.

Baccare's curriculum pages list every knowledge-and-skills strand and student expectation for a grade, straight from the state's published text, and show which expectations have practice activities. When your child's teacher sends home this week's focus, find it on the curriculum page and you will have the matching practice in seconds.