Minnesota standards alignment

• 9.1.4.1

  Covered

  Evaluate federalism and the provisions of the U.S. Constitution, which delegate to the federal government the powers necessary to fulfill the purposes for which it was established. Distinguish between those powers and the powers retained by the people and the states.

  Covered by

  • State vs Federal Power: How American Government Is Divided
  • US Constitution 101: The Document That Builds the Government

  • · State vs Federal Power, Lesson 1 · What is federalism, and why split power at all?
  • · State vs Federal Power, Lesson 2 · Three kinds of power: enumerated, implied, reserved
  • · State vs Federal Power, Lesson 3 · The enumerated powers: Article I, § 8 (the Necessary and Proper Clause)
  • · State vs Federal Power, Lesson 6 · Concurrent powers: what both levels share
  • · State vs Federal Power, Lesson 7 · McCulloch v. Maryland (1819): implied powers and supremacy
  • · US Constitution 101, Lesson 6 · Separation of powers and checks & balances
  • · US Constitution 101, Lesson 7 · Federalism: state and federal power

  Note: Taught through the enumerated/implied/reserved/concurrent powers taxonomy (with McCulloch v. Maryland) and the federalism course's account of why power is split between the levels.

• 9.1.4.2

  Covered

  Analyze the purposes, organization, functions and processes of the legislative branch as enumerated in Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution.

  Covered by

  • US Constitution 101: The Document That Builds the Government
  • How a Bill Becomes Law (Federal): From Idea to Public Law
  • US Civics 101: How American Government Works

  • · US Constitution 101, Lessons 3-6 · Articles I-III and checks & balances
  • · How a Bill Becomes Law (Federal) · the whole course, introduction to public law
  • · US Civics 101, Lesson 3 · How a bill becomes a law

  Note: Article I's structure and enumerated powers, and how a bill becomes a federal law, are taught end to end.

• 9.1.4.3

  Covered

  Analyze the purposes, organization, functions and processes of the executive branch as enumerated in Article 2 of the U.S. Constitution.

  Covered by

  • US Constitution 101: The Document That Builds the Government
  • US Civics 101: How American Government Works

  • · US Constitution 101, Lessons 3-6 · Articles I-III and checks & balances
  • · US Civics 101, Lesson 1 · Purpose of government and the three branches

• 9.1.4.4

  Covered

  Analyze the purposes, organization, functions and processes of the judicial branch as enumerated in Article 3 of the U.S. Constitution.

  Covered by

  • US Constitution 101: The Document That Builds the Government
  • The Supreme Court & the Judicial Branch
  • US Civics 101: How American Government Works

  • · US Constitution 101, Lessons 3-6 · Articles I-III and checks & balances
  • · The Supreme Court & the Judicial Branch, Lesson 1 · The federal judiciary: from district courts to the Supreme Court
  • · The Supreme Court & the Judicial Branch, Lesson 7 · Checks on the Court
  • · US Civics 101, Lesson 4 · The courts and judicial review (Marbury v. Madison)

  Note: Article III's judiciary, the federal court structure, and judicial review through Marbury v. Madison are each taught by name. (The source prints this code as "9.1.4.4." with a stray trailing period; the code is 9.1.4.4.)

• 9.1.3.1

  Partially covered

  Compare rights in the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights and subsequent amendments, the rights in the Constitution of the State of Minnesota, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

  Covered by

  • US Constitution 101: The Document That Builds the Government
  • The Bill of Rights: Know Your Rights

  • · US Constitution 101, Lesson 8 · The Bill of Rights (Amendments I to X)
  • · The Bill of Rights: Know Your Rights, Lesson 1 · What is the Bill of Rights?
  • · US Constitution 101, Lesson 9 · Changing the Constitution: Article V and key later amendments
  • · Know Your Rights, Lessons 2-5 · speech, religion, press, assembly, including at school and online
  • · Know Your Rights, Lessons 6-8 · the 4th Amendment: searches, stops, and your digital life

  What we do and don't cover: The U.S. Bill of Rights, the later amendments (via Article V), and the landmark rights cases are taught by name; the two comparison anchors the standard adds — the Minnesota Constitution's own rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights — are not specifically taught, so this is partial.

What we don't claim

A standards page is only worth reading if the omissions are honest too. We looked at these and left them out:

• Mathematics — Minnesota's OWN standards (NOT the Common Core): nothing claimed. Minnesota is one of the few states that did NOT adopt the Common Core for mathematics; it kept its own Minnesota Academic Standards in Mathematics. Either way, this catalog does no mathematics instruction, so it meets no Minnesota mathematics benchmark.
• English/Language Arts — Common Core adopted in 2010, since REPLACED by Minnesota's own 2020 standards: deferred. Minnesota adopted the Common Core State Standards for English language arts in their entirety in 2010 (adopted into rule in 2011, implemented 2012-13) — a genuine Common Core ELA state. Since then Minnesota has REPLACED them with its own 2020 Minnesota Academic Standards in English Language Arts (adopted 2023, fully implemented 2025-26), which re-home literacy as "disciplinary literacies" including a discrete "Literacy in History/Social Studies" section for grades 6-12. Because the CURRENT Minnesota ELA standards are no longer a verbatim republication of the Common Core, we do NOT alias the shared Common Core ELA framework here — that would cite superseded standards. The catalog's ELA-literacy strengths (evaluating an author's point of view and evidence, analyzing rhetoric, sustained research with citation) would map to Minnesota's 2020 "Literacy in History/Social Studies" standards, but transcribing and verifying those verbatim is deferred this pass. Note: the media/source-evaluation skill is already claimed, as a full alignment, through the Citizenship and Government benchmark 9.1.1.3.
• Science — Minnesota's OWN 2019 standards (NGSS-influenced, not the NGSS): deferred. Minnesota adopted its own 2019 Minnesota Academic Standards in Science, which are influenced by but are NOT a verbatim adoption of the Next Generation Science Standards, so the shared NGSS mapping this catalog uses in NGSS states does not apply in Minnesota. The catalog's climate/resource content (resources, hazards, and climate shaping human activity) would find an analog in Minnesota's Earth/environmental science benchmarks, but this pass mapped only the Citizenship and Government strand; Minnesota's science benchmarks are deferred (verbatim-or-nothing), not claimed unverified.
• Tribal Nations (Anchor Standard Six, and the Tribal clauses of 9.1.4.7). Minnesota's Citizenship and Government strand has an entire Tribal Nations anchor standard (9.1.6.1-9.1.6.4) and threads Tribal governments through 9.1.4.7. Minnesota Civics teaches Minnesota's state and local structure but not the governments of Minnesota's eleven Tribal Nations, so 9.1.4.7 is claimed as partial and the Anchor Standard Six benchmarks are not claimed. The gap is in the course, not the standards.
• Minnesota's DFL and nonpartisan-Legislature distinctives lack a discrete party benchmark. The flagship teaches the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and the 60-year (1913-1973) nonpartisan Legislature as headline Minnesota features. The Citizenship and Government strand's closest benchmark is 9.1.5.1 (the impact of political parties on elections and public policy), which the course does not otherwise satisfy, so those specifics are claimed only through 9.1.4.7 (the powers and operations of Minnesota government) rather than as a parties standard of their own. The high-turnout / same-day-registration signature IS claimed squarely, through 9.1.1.2 (how access to voting is impacted by law).
• The founding-philosophy, rights-of-the-accused-at-trial, budget, foreign-policy, and public-opinion benchmarks we checked and rejected. 9.1.2.1 (the founding-era natural-rights and social-contract philosophy as a named unit), 9.1.2.2 (the significance of democratic values to processes/elections as an abstraction), 9.1.2.3 (the individual-rights vs. general-welfare, majority vs. minority, and liberty vs. equality tensions), 9.1.3.4 (the rights of the accused at trial under the Sixth and Eighth Amendments), 9.1.3.5 (due process and equal protection under the 14th Amendment as civil-rights jurisprudence), 9.1.4.6 (the purposes, types and sources of laws and rules as a taxonomy), 9.1.4.9 (comparing the U.S. and Minnesota budgets), 9.1.4.10 / 9.1.4.11 (influencing U.S. foreign policy and the role of international law), and 9.1.5.1 / 9.1.5.2 (political parties, interest groups, media, and public opinion shaping public policy) — the courses do not genuinely teach these, or teach them too thinly to claim, so we do not claim them.