The American Diploma Project's (ADP) cornerstone is English and math benchmarks that define the knowledge and skills high school graduates need to be successful. The accompanying workplace tasks and postsecondary assignments demonstrate how those skills are used. Click on the section names below to see links to the benchmarks and samples.

Benchmarks

The English and mathematics benchmarks were identified and refined over 18 months of research conducted in postsecondary institutions and high-performance workplaces, both within and beyond the ADP partner states (Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Nevada and Texas) and in conjunction with K-12 educators. (See Research for a description of the development process.) The benchmarks are accompanied by workplace tasks and postsecondary assignments that illustrate the intellectual demand that high school students will encounter in high-performance workplaces or in credit-bearing first-year college and university courses.

English benchmarks are organized into eight strands:

• Language
• Communication
• Writing
• Research
• Logic
• Informational Text
• Media
• Literature

Mathematics benchmarks are organized into four strands:

• Number Sense and Numerical Operations
• Algebra
• Geometry
• Data Interpretation, Statistics and Probability

Workplace Tasks and Postsecondary Assignments

Workplace tasks and postsecondary assignments accompany the benchmarks. Please note that these are not meant to describe the quality and complexity of high school assignments. Although the benchmarks, tasks and assignments may be used in the future to inform the development of high school lessons, these are designed simply to illustrate the intellectual rigor of real-world environments beyond high school and the applicability of the ADP benchmarks in postsecondary and workplace settings.

Within each sample, the corresponding English and mathematics benchmarks are called out so that readers may easily recognize how, and in what context, the benchmarks are applied.