Abeka is committed to providing the finest educational resources for Christian schools and homeschool families. Accordingly, we routinely monitor educational trends in curriculum and assessment to evaluate them in light of traditional Christian values and objectives. Our goal is to continually improve Abeka materials by providing the most up-to-date content and best practices in textbooks and curriculum.

Common Core Alignment

Many Christian school educators and homeschool parents are inquiring about the sweeping national education standards known as Common Core State Standards (CCSS). While CCSS have only been written for English language arts and mathematics, they have quickly been adopted by most state departments of education, and future standardized testing appears to be aligning with them. Meanwhile, there is much controversy over the imposition of national standards, the loss of local control over education, and undesirable philosophical implications.

Because Abeka has historically met or exceeded recommended content standards, it is not surprising that when compared to current CCSS, the Abeka language arts and mathematics objectives were found to already meet almost all Common Core content standards.

However, a few differences were found. For example, in English language arts, Abeka fulfills or exceeds many of the standards at an earlier grade level than outlined in CCSS. Further, in mathematics, Abeka has chosen a different sequence of topical representation because it is more logical in presentation than what Common Core proposes.

Standards in education are often very useful when they inform content in an effort to ensure that subject matter is age appropriate, sequentially meaningful, and academically rigorous. Unfortunately, some of Common Core goes beyond content and moves into the realm of teaching methodology. Since many of these techniques do not align with our traditional Christian approach, we have purposefully chosen not to add them, but rather to leave it up to the school or individual to make decisions for implementation in keeping with their philosophy and principles of teaching and learning.

Proven Success of Abeka

The academic integrity of Abeka has been validated by the success of hundreds of thousands of students over decades. Historically, students instructed under our curriculum consistently score above national averages on standardized tests and on college entrance tests. Our skilled researchers and writers do not paraphrase progressive education textbooks; they do primary research in every subject and look at the subject from the traditional Christian point of view.

While it is healthy to be informed by educational trends and performance data, it is not the practice of Abeka to adjust or change its curriculum to align with each new reform that is presented in academia. We will continue our commitment to seek content and best practices that provide students with the tools they need for both academic and personal success.

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