Texas Response to Curriculum Focal Points for K–8 Mathematics Revised 2013

Download the Texas Response to Curriculum Focal Points for K–8 Mathematics Revised 2013.

The Texas Response to Curriculum Focal Points for K-8 Mathematics (TXRCFP) provides a guide for making decisions regarding areas of emphasis, pacing of instruction, curriculum design, and professional development in K-8 mathematics.

  • Identifying areas of emphasis - A focused and coherent curriculum can increase the likelihood that Texas students have gained the knowledge and skills that are needed for success in mathematics courses in college and the wide array of courses that require knowledge of mathematics.
  • Pacing instruction - Instructional time is measured not by exposure to individual student expectations, but to engagement in building the connections among the groups of student expectations that provide the important foundational mathematical understandings.
  • Designing curriculum - Focal points provide a concise framework for developing and sequencing mathematics curricula for each grade level.
  • Providing professional development - Coursework and field-based experiences need to enable teachers to gain the knowledge and skills to implement the focal points with ease and confidence. The focal points are meant to highlight connections across strands, or topics. Many focal points include student expectations that involve applications of the “big idea” presented in the focal point.

About the TXRCFP Revised 2013

In 2009, the TEA provided focal points for the existing state mathematics curriculum by publishing the Texas Response to Curriculum Focal Points for K–8 Mathematics (TXRCFP).

These focal points were developed in response to the National Mathematics Advisory Panel report that provided Benchmarks for the Critical Foundations for success in Algebra as guideposts for state frameworks and district-level curricula and for a similar purpose as the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) Curriculum Focal Points for Kindergarten through Grade 8 Mathematics: A Quest for Coherence, which described the most significant mathematical concepts and skills at each grade level.

With the 2012 revision of the mathematics TEKS, the new Texas Response to Curriculum Focal Points Revised 2013 was published to provide an updated guide for implementation of the revised TEKS. In particular, this document provides a guide for making decisions regarding areas of emphasis, pacing of instruction, curriculum design, assessment, and professional development in K–8 mathematics.

The Texas Response to Curriculum Focal Points Revised 2013 is aligned to the new K–8 math TEKS, which were implemented in 2014–15.


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