Skip to content

Learn.WitUS

California standards alignment

Designed for high school. Below is every Californiastandard these courses cover: the exact code, the standard's own words, and the lesson that covers it. Where we only cover part of a standard, it says so, and says which part.

38
standards mapped
11
fully covered
27
partially covered
4
frameworks

This list is filtered. Showing 38 standards in Social Studies, out of 74 mapped for California. Clear filters

Change the filters ↓

Read this before you rely on it

  • We mapped this ourselves. This alignment was done by Learn.WitUS against the published standards. It has not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by California's education authority or by anyone else.
  • Every code was fetched, then transcribed word for word. Each framework below shows the date its codes and text were retrieved from the publisher.
  • Standards get revised.A code can be renumbered or its wording changed without notice, and some states publish more than one live edition of the same document. Confirm anything you file against your own jurisdiction's current requirements, using the source links below.
  • We would rather claim less. Where the courses only partly cover a standard, this page says partially covered and explains the gap. Standards we considered and could not honestly claim are listed at the bottom, with the reasons.

California · Social Studies

History–Social Science Content Standards — Grade Ten: World History, Culture, and Geography: The Modern World

Adopted October 9, 1998 · California Department of Education (CDE) / State Board of Education · retrieved 2026-07-17

California's 1998 content standards remain the operative standards (the 2016 History–Social Science Framework is curriculum guidance built on them, not a replacement). Sub-standards are cited main.sub (10.4.3), CDE's own convention.

Read the source document →

  • 10.4.3

    Covered
    Explain imperialism from the perspective of the colonizers and the colonized and the varied immediate and long-term responses by the people under colonial rule.

    Covered by

    • · Ep 2 · Who Grows the Tea (colonial and plantation labour)
    • · Ep 5 · Whose Knowledge Is It
    • · Ep 6 · Kava Governs
    • · Ep 17 · The Opium Wars
    • · Ep 20 · The Ban Against the Evidence
    • · Ep 4 · Whose Voice Tells the Story, Beckford (1790) against Equiano (1789) and Mary Prince (1831) on the same plantation world
    • · Ep 3 · Two Ways of Seeing a Bean
    • · Ep 5 · Two Ways of Knowing
    • · Ep 18 · Whose Voice
    • · Ep 4 · The Triangular Trade and the Middle Passage
    • · Ep 4 · Resistance and Revolution
    • · Ep 11 · The Maroons
    • · Ep 11 · The Haitian Revolution

    Note: Both perspectives and the responses, which is exactly this curriculum's method: imperial and colonial systems worked through the commodities they ran, paired first-person accounts on each side (the Whose Voice lessons), and the resistance — from Maroon communities to revolution. The parent standard asks for at least two of its named regions; the courses reach Africa, China, India, and Latin America.

  • 10.4.1

    Partially covered
    Describe the rise of industrial economies and their link to imperialism and colonialism (e.g., the role played by national security and strategic advantage; moral issues raised by the search for national hegemony, Social Darwinism, and the missionary impulse; material issues such as land, resources, and technology).

    Covered by

    • · Ep 2 · Who Grows the Tea (colonial and plantation labour)
    • · Ep 5 · Whose Knowledge Is It
    • · Ep 6 · Kava Governs
    • · Ep 17 · The Opium Wars
    • · Ep 20 · The Ban Against the Evidence
    • · Ep 3 · Conquest and the Great Reversal
    • · Ep 5 · How Coca-Cola Got Its Name (biopiracy)
    • · Ep 7 · The Same Story, Six Times
    • · Ep 11 · The Debt of Freedom (the 1825 French indemnity and Haiti's modern poverty)

    What we do and don't cover: Partial: the material link — industrial economies pulling land, resources, and labor out of colonies — is taught in depth through the cash-crop systems. The standard's national-security and ideological framings (Social Darwinism, the missionary impulse) are not worked head-on.

  • 10.3.4

    Partially covered
    Trace the evolution of work and labor, including the demise of the slave trade and the effects of immigration, mining and manufacturing, division of labor, and the union movement.

    Covered by

    • · The History of Unions, Lesson 4 · Two ideas about who a union is for: the Knights and the AFL
    • · The History of Unions, Lesson 5 · Haymarket, 1886
    • · The History of Unions, Lesson 6 · Homestead, Pullman, and the weapon that actually broke strikes
    • · Ep 4 · The Triangular Trade and the Middle Passage
    • · Ep 4 · Resistance and Revolution
    • · Ep 11 · The Maroons
    • · Ep 11 · The Haitian Revolution

    What we do and don't cover: Partial: the union movement is taught at real depth (the Knights, the AFL, Haymarket, Homestead, Pullman) and the end of plantation slavery is taught through the abolition lessons — but the parent standard spans England, France, Germany, Japan, and the United States, and our labor history is American.

  • 10.9.5

    Partially covered
    Describe the uprisings in Poland (1956), Hungary (1956), and Czechoslovakia (1968) and those countries’ resurgence in the 1970s and 1980s as people in Soviet satellites sought freedom from Soviet control.

    Covered by

    • · Poland: Solidarność, Lesson 3 · A workers' state with a worker problem
    • · Poland: Solidarność, Lesson 7 · 13 December 1981: the state answers (martial law)
    • · Poland: Solidarność, Lesson 8 · 1989: a union negotiates a state out of existence

    What we do and don't cover: Partial: the resurgence half is taught in real depth for ONE of the three countries — Poland, from the 1970 and 1976 strikes through Solidarność, martial law, and 1989. The 1956 uprisings and Czechoslovakia 1968 are not taught.

California · Social Studies

History–Social Science Content Standards — Grade Eleven: United States History and Geography: Continuity and Change in the Twentieth Century

Adopted October 9, 1998 · California Department of Education (CDE) / State Board of Education · retrieved 2026-07-17

California's required 11th-grade U.S. history course. Sub-standards are cited main.sub (11.5.3), CDE's own convention. Note: the document prints “Malcom X” in 11.10.4; we transcribe codes and text verbatim, so that spelling is the standard's own.

Read the source document →

  • 11.6.5

    Covered
    Trace the advances and retreats of organized labor, from the creation of the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations to current issues of a postindustrial, multinational economy, including the United Farm Workers in California.

    Covered by

    • · The History of Unions, Lesson 4 · Two ideas about who a union is for: the Knights and the AFL
    • · The History of Unions, Lesson 5 · Haymarket, 1886
    • · The History of Unions, Lesson 6 · Homestead, Pullman, and the weapon that actually broke strikes
    • · The History of Unions, Lesson 9 · 1935: the year organizing became a right (the Wagner Act)
    • · The History of Unions, Lesson 10 · The hole in the law: who the Wagner Act left out
    • · The History of Unions, Lesson 13 · Taft-Hartley, 1947: what the law took back
    • · The History of Unions, Lesson 14 · PATCO, 1981, and reading the decline honestly
    • · Mexico, Lesson 7 · Mexico rewrites its labor law, and the 68-year gap that explains why
    • · Mexico, Lesson 10 · The Rapid Response Mechanism: an international labor rule with teeth
    • · Mexico, Lesson 12 · The limits, honestly: the cases the United States lost

    Note: This is the unions course's exact arc — advances (the AFL, the Wagner Act) and retreats (Taft-Hartley, PATCO) through to the postindustrial, multinational economy (NAFTA→USMCA and its Rapid Response Mechanism). The United Farm Workers appear where they belong analytically: the grape strike and boycott taught as the workaround the Wagner Act's farmworker exclusion forced, through California's own Agricultural Labor Relations Act of 1975.

  • 11.10.4

    Partially covered
    Examine the roles of civil rights advocates (e.g., A. Philip Randolph, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcom X, Thurgood Marshall, James Farmer, Rosa Parks), including the significance of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and “I Have a Dream” speech.

    Covered by

    • · The History of Unions, Lesson 16 · The colour bar: unions' own history of exclusion
    • · The History of Unions, Lesson 17 · Randolph to Memphis: the labor half of the civil-rights movement

    What we do and don't cover: Partial, from the angle most curricula skip: A. Philip Randolph — the standard's first named advocate — is taught in depth, from the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters through the 1963 March on Washington he architected to Memphis 1968. The standard's other named figures and the two King texts are not taught individually.

  • 11.10.1

    Partially covered
    Explain how demands of African Americans helped produce a stimulus for civil rights, including President Roosevelt’s ban on racial discrimination in defense industries in 1941, and how African Americans’ service in World War II produced a stimulus for President Truman’s decision to end segregation in the armed forces in 1948.

    Covered by

    • · The History of Unions, Lesson 16 · The colour bar: unions' own history of exclusion
    • · The History of Unions, Lesson 17 · Randolph to Memphis: the labor half of the civil-rights movement
    • · The Great Migration, Lesson 11 · Politics & civil rights

    What we do and don't cover: Partial: the 1941 half is taught in real depth — Randolph's threatened march and Executive Order 8802 barring discrimination in defense industries — and the Black urban vote's civil-rights politics gets its own lesson. The WWII-service-to-Truman-1948 half is referenced, not worked.

  • 11.6.4

    Partially covered
    Analyze the effects of and the controversies arising from New Deal economic policies and the expanded role of the federal government in society and the economy since the 1930s (e.g., Works Progress Administration, Social Security, National Labor Relations Board, farm programs, regional development policies, and energy development projects such as the Tennessee Valley Authority, California Central Valley Project, and Bonneville Dam).

    Covered by

    • · The History of Unions, Lesson 9 · 1935: the year organizing became a right (the Wagner Act)
    • · The History of Unions, Lesson 10 · The hole in the law: who the Wagner Act left out

    What we do and don't cover: Partial: one named piece of the New Deal — the National Labor Relations Board's statute, the Wagner Act — is taught in depth, including the controversy the standard asks for (who the law excluded, and why that mattered). The rest of the New Deal apparatus is not taught.

  • 11.5.5

    Partially covered
    Describe the Harlem Renaissance and new trends in literature, music, and art, with special attention to the work of writers (e.g., Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes).

    Covered by

    • · The Great Migration, Lesson 6 · The Black press as engine: the Chicago Defender
    • · The Great Migration, Lesson 7 · The Harlem Renaissance & the New Negro

    What we do and don't cover: Partial: the Harlem Renaissance and the New Negro are their own lesson, tied to the Great Migration that made them possible. The full literature-music-art survey with its named writers is not taught.

California · Social Studies

History–Social Science Content Standards — Grade Twelve: Principles of American Democracy

Adopted October 9, 1998 · California Department of Education (CDE) / State Board of Education · retrieved 2026-07-17

California's one-semester 12th-grade civics course. The Grade 12 civics and economics sections of the 1998 document REUSE the same code numbers (each has a 12.4.1), so this framework carries the American Democracy section only — economics is its own framework below. Sub-standards are cited main.sub (12.6.5); 12.10 is a main standard with no sub-standards.

Read the source document →

  • 12.4.2

    Covered
    Explain the process through which the Constitution can be amended.

    Covered by

    • · US Constitution 101, Lesson 9 · Changing the Constitution: Article V and key later amendments

  • 12.4.5

    Covered
    Discuss Article III of the Constitution as it relates to judicial power, including the length of terms of judges and the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court.

    Covered by

    • · 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

    Note: Article III gets its own lessons, and the judiciary course adds the structure the standard asks about: life tenure, the three-tier system, and what the Supreme Court's jurisdiction actually reaches.

  • 12.4.6

    Covered
    Explain the processes of selection and confirmation of Supreme Court justices.

    Covered by

    • · The Supreme Court & the Judicial Branch, Lesson 2 · How a judge gets there: nomination and confirmation

    Note: An entire lesson: Article II advice-and-consent, the Judiciary Committee's investigation and hearings, and how the cloture rules changed in 2013 and 2017.

  • 12.6.4

    Covered
    Describe the means that citizens use to participate in the political process (e.g., voting, campaigning, lobbying, filing a legal challenge, demonstrating, petitioning, picketing, running for political office).

    Covered by

    • · Voting & Elections 101, Lesson 1 · Registering to vote
    • · How to Help a Campaign · the whole course (volunteering, donating, canvassing, with the legal guardrails)
    • · How a Bill Becomes Law, Lesson 8 · Tracking a bill and making your voice heard
    • · US, State & Local Government, Lesson 8 · Where to show up and be heard, at every level
    • · How to Run for Office · the whole course (eligibility, ballot access, money rules, and after Election Day)
    • · California Civics, Lesson 6 · Elections in California: automatic & same-day registration, mail ballots for all
    • · California Civics, Lesson 8 · Get involved where you live in California

    Note: Participation is taught as practice across an entire course ladder: registering and voting (with California's own on-ramps), helping a campaign lawfully, tracking a live bill, showing up at every level, and running for office yourself.

  • 12.6.5

    Covered
    Discuss the features of direct democracy in numerous states (e.g., the process of referendums, recall elections).

    Covered by

    • · California Civics, Lesson 1 · California's constitution: the 1879 rulebook and direct democracy
    • · California Civics, Lesson 6 · Elections in California (the citizen initiative and its thresholds)
    • · California Civics, Lesson 7 · Direct democracy in depth: initiative, referendum, recall
    • · Arizona Civics, Lesson 1 · Arizona's constitution and its strong direct democracy
    • · Arizona Civics, Lesson 4 · How voters make law directly (the initiative route)
    • · Arizona Civics, Lesson 6 · The Voter Protection Act (Prop 105, 1998)
    • · Arkansas Civics, Lesson 7 · The citizen initiative: recently tightened & in flux (flagged)
    • · How to Help a Campaign, Lesson 10 · Helping ballot measures and local causes

    Note: “Numerous states” is taken literally: California's initiative, referendum, and recall in working detail (including the turnout-dependent thresholds), Arizona's Progressive-era direct democracy and Voter Protection Act, and Arkansas's Amendment 7 petitions — plus a practical lesson on helping ballot measures.

  • 12.7.3

    Covered
    Discuss reserved powers and concurrent powers of state governments.

    Covered by

    • · 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

    Note: Taught by name: reserved powers through the Tenth Amendment, concurrent powers as their own lesson, alongside the enumerated and implied powers that complete the taxonomy.

  • 12.7.7

    Covered
    Identify the organization and jurisdiction of federal, state, and local (e.g., California) courts and the interrelationships among them.

    Covered by

    • · 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
    • · California Civics, Lesson 3 · California's courts: appoint, confirm, then retention
    • · State vs Federal Power, Lesson 1 · What is federalism, and why split power at all?

    Note: The standard's own example is California, and the flagship delivers it: the three-tier state system from the 58 county Superior Courts up, the appoint-confirm-retain selection for appellate justices — beside the federal judiciary course and the federalism course's state-federal interrelationships.

  • 12.2.3

    Covered
    Discuss the individual’s legal obligations to obey the law, serve as a juror, and pay taxes.

    Covered by

    • · Jury Duty & the Courts · the whole course (the citizen's side of the court system)
    • · Citizenship & Naturalization Basics, Lesson 7 · Rights and responsibilities of citizenship

    Note: Jury service — the obligation curricula usually wave at — is an entire course here, and the responsibilities lesson covers the rest of the standard's list.

  • 12.2.6

    Covered
    Explain how one becomes a citizen of the United States, including the process of naturalization (e.g., literacy, language, and other requirements).

    Covered by

    • · Citizenship & Naturalization Basics, Lesson 1 · Who is a U.S. citizen? Birthright and the 14th Amendment
    • · Citizenship & Naturalization Basics, Lesson 3 · Becoming a citizen: naturalization eligibility

    Note: The 14th Amendment, jus soli, citizenship through parents, and naturalization eligibility step by step — including the English and civics requirements the standard names.

  • 12.1.5

    Partially covered
    Describe the systems of separated and shared powers, the role of organized interests (Federalist Paper Number 10), checks and balances (Federalist Paper Number 51), the importance of an independent judiciary (Federalist Paper Number 78), enumerated powers, rule of law, federalism, and civilian control of the military.

    Covered by

    • · US Constitution 101, Lesson 6 · Separation of powers and checks & balances
    • · US Constitution 101, Lesson 7 · Federalism: state and federal power
    • · 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
    • · 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
    • · State vs Federal Power, Lesson 1 · What is federalism, and why split power at all?

    What we do and don't cover: Partial: the systems themselves — separation of powers, checks and balances, judicial independence, enumerated powers, federalism — are all taught directly. The three Federalist Papers the standard cites are not worked as texts, and civilian control of the military is not taught.

  • 12.1.6

    Partially covered
    Understand that the Bill of Rights limits the powers of the federal government and state governments.

    Covered by

    • · US Constitution 101, Lesson 8 · The Bill of Rights (Amendments I to X)
    • · 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: Partial: the Bill of Rights as a limit on government is taught as a document and as applied rules a student can use. HOW it came to bind the states — the incorporation doctrine — is not taught in depth.

  • 12.2.1

    Partially covered
    Discuss the meaning and importance of each of the rights guaranteed under the Bill of Rights and how each is secured (e.g., freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, petition, privacy).

    Covered by

    • · The Bill of Rights: Know Your Rights, Lesson 1 · What is the Bill of Rights?
    • · 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
    • · Know Your Rights, Lesson 2 · Freedom of speech: what's protected, and what isn't
    • · Know Your Rights, Lesson 5 · Speech and religion at school, and online
    • · Know Your Rights, Lesson 7 · Police stops, reasonable suspicion, and your privacy

    What we do and don't cover: Partial, and the standard says “each”: speech, religion, press, assembly, and the Fourth Amendment's privacy protections are taught deeply, as applicable rules with their landmark cases and limits. The remaining amendments are introduced but not worked at that depth.

  • 12.2.4

    Partially covered
    Understand the obligations of civic-mindedness, including voting, being informed on civic issues, volunteering and performing public service, and serving in the military or alternative service.

    Covered by

    • · Citizenship & Naturalization Basics, Lesson 7 · Rights and responsibilities of citizenship
    • · Voting & Elections 101, Lesson 1 · Registering to vote
    • · How to Help a Campaign · the whole course (volunteering, donating, canvassing, with the legal guardrails)

    What we do and don't cover: Partial: voting, staying informed, and volunteering are taught as practices (registration walkthroughs, campaign volunteering with its legal guardrails). Military and alternative service are not taught.

  • 12.4.1

    Partially covered
    Discuss Article I of the Constitution as it relates to the legislative branch, including eligibility for office and lengths of terms of representatives and senators; election to office; the roles of the House and Senate in impeachment proceedings; the role of the vice president; the enumerated legislative powers; and the process by which a bill becomes a law.

    Covered by

    • · 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

    What we do and don't cover: Partial: Article I's structure, the enumerated powers, and the bill-to-law process are taught in depth (the process gets an entire course, committees through veto override). The impeachment roles and the vice president's legislative role are touched only in passing.

  • 12.4.4

    Partially covered
    Discuss Article II of the Constitution as it relates to the executive branch, including eligibility for office and length of term, election to and removal from office, the oath of office, and the enumerated executive powers.

    Covered by

    • · US Constitution 101, Lessons 3-6 · Articles I-III and checks & balances
    • · Voting & Elections 101, Lesson 4 · The Electoral College: how it works
    • · Voting & Elections 101, Lesson 5 · Why the Electoral College exists

    What we do and don't cover: Partial: Article II's structure and powers are taught, and election to office gets unusual depth — the Electoral College's mechanics AND its original purpose. Removal and the oath are named, not worked.

  • 12.5.1

    Partially covered
    Understand the changing interpretations of the Bill of Rights over time, including interpretations of the basic freedoms (religion, speech, press, petition, and assembly) articulated in the First Amendment and the due process and equal-protection-of-the-law clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.

    Covered by

    • · 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
    • · The Supreme Court & the Judicial Branch, Lesson 5 · Writing the opinion: majority, concurrence, dissent, and precedent

    What we do and don't cover: Partial: changing First Amendment interpretation is taught through the landmark-case line (Tinker, Brandenburg, and how precedent expands rights). The Fourteenth Amendment's due process and equal protection doctrines are named in our lessons but not taught in depth.

  • 12.5.3

    Partially covered
    Evaluate the effects of the Court’s interpretations of the Constitution in Marbury v. Madison, McCulloch v. Maryland, and United States v. Nixon, with emphasis on the arguments espoused by each side in these cases.

    Covered by

    • · US Civics 101, Lesson 4 · The courts and judicial review (Marbury v. Madison)
    • · 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

    What we do and don't cover: Partial: two of the three named cases are taught as rules a student can apply — Marbury (judicial review) and McCulloch (implied powers and supremacy). United States v. Nixon is not taught.

  • 12.6.2

    Partially covered
    Discuss the history of the nomination process for presidential candidates and the increasing importance of primaries in general elections.

    Covered by

    • · Voting & Elections 101, Lessons 1-3 · registration, primaries and caucuses, how you vote
    • · Voting & Elections 101, Lesson 7 · Counting, canvassing, and certifying the vote
    • · Voting & Elections 101, Lesson 8 · Verify your own registration and rules

    What we do and don't cover: Partial: how primaries and caucuses actually work — and why they matter — is taught thoroughly. The historical development of the nomination process is sketched, not traced.

  • 12.6.6

    Partially covered
    Analyze trends in voter turnout; the causes and effects of reapportionment and redistricting, with special attention to spatial districting and the rights of minorities; and the function of the Electoral College.

    Covered by

    • · Voting & Elections 101, Lesson 4 · The Electoral College: how it works
    • · Voting & Elections 101, Lesson 5 · Why the Electoral College exists

    What we do and don't cover: Partial: one of the standard's three clauses — the Electoral College's function — is taught in depth, mechanics and original purpose both. Turnout trends and redistricting are not taught.

  • 12.7.2

    Partially covered
    Identify the major responsibilities and sources of revenue for state and local governments.

    Covered by

    • · US, State & Local Government, Lesson 5 · What LOCAL government handles (and why it VARIES)
    • · US, State & Local Government, Lesson 7 · The governments you forget: special districts & boards
    • · California Civics, Lesson 5 · Local government in California: 58 counties, charter cities, NO townships
    • · California Civics, Lesson 8 · Get involved where you live in California (county, city, special district)

    What we do and don't cover: Partial: the responsibilities half is deep — what counties, cities, and special districts actually run, with California's own map (58 counties, charter cities, no townships). Revenue sources appear only where the lessons meet them (special districts' taxes and fees), not as a finance unit.

  • 12.7.4

    Partially covered
    Discuss the Ninth and Tenth Amendments and interpretations of the extent of the federal government’s power.

    Covered by

    • · 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
    • · State vs Federal Power, Lesson 1 · What is federalism, and why split power at all?

    What we do and don't cover: Partial: the Tenth Amendment and the interpretive fight over federal power (McCulloch, the Commerce Clause's reach) are taught directly. The Ninth Amendment is not taught.

  • 12.7.6

    Partially covered
    Compare the processes of lawmaking at each of the three levels of government, including the role of lobbying and the media.

    Covered by

    • · How a Bill Becomes Law (Federal) · the whole course, introduction to public law
    • · US Civics 101, Lesson 3 · How a bill becomes a law
    • · California Civics, Lesson 4 · How a bill becomes a California law
    • · US, State & Local Government, Lesson 5 · What LOCAL government handles (and why it VARIES)
    • · US, State & Local Government, Lesson 7 · The governments you forget: special districts & boards

    What we do and don't cover: Partial: two of the three levels are taught in genuine procedural depth — the federal process and California's own (committee filter, two-thirds override, line-item veto) — and the local level's structure is taught. Local lawmaking procedure and the lobbying/media roles are not worked systematically.

  • 12.9.7

    Partially covered
    Describe the ideologies that give rise to Communism, methods of maintaining control, and the movements to overthrow such governments in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland, including the roles of individuals (e.g., Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Pope John Paul II, Lech Walesa, Vaclav Havel).

    Covered by

    • · Poland: Solidarność, Lesson 3 · A workers' state with a worker problem
    • · Poland: Solidarność, Lesson 7 · 13 December 1981: the state answers (martial law)
    • · Poland: Solidarność, Lesson 8 · 1989: a union negotiates a state out of existence
    • · Poland: Solidarność, Lesson 9 · What winning cost: shock therapy

    What we do and don't cover: Partial: ONE of the three named movements — Poland's — is taught in real depth, Lech Wałęsa's role included, from a workers' state's methods of control through martial law to the 1989 negotiated exit. Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and the other named individuals are not taught.

  • 12.10

    Partially covered
    Students formulate questions about and defend their analyses of tensions within our constitutional democracy and the importance of maintaining a balance between the following concepts: majority rule and individual rights; liberty and equality; state and national authority in a federal system; civil disobedience and the rule of law; freedom of the press and the right to a fair trial; the relationship of religion and government.

    Covered by

    • · Know Your Rights, Lesson 2 · Freedom of speech: what's protected, and what isn't
    • · Know Your Rights, Lesson 5 · Speech and religion at school, and online
    • · Know Your Rights, Lesson 7 · Police stops, reasonable suspicion, and your privacy
    • · State vs Federal Power, Lesson 1 · What is federalism, and why split power at all?

    What we do and don't cover: Partial: two of the named tensions are taught as live questions — majority rule against individual rights (when government may constitutionally limit rights, and why) and state against national authority (an entire course). The formulate-and-defend performance happens in a classroom we don't run, and the remaining tensions are not taught as units.

California · Social Studies

History–Social Science Content Standards — Grade Twelve: Principles of Economics

Adopted October 9, 1998 · California Department of Education (CDE) / State Board of Education · retrieved 2026-07-17

California's one-semester 12th-grade economics course — printed in the same document as Principles of American Democracy with its own 12.x numbering, so it is its own framework here (each section has a 12.4.1). We claim no personal-finance or macroeconomic-measurement standards.

Read the source document →

  • 12.4.1

    Partially covered
    Understand the operations of the labor market, including the circumstances surrounding the establishment of principal American labor unions, procedures that unions use to gain benefits for their members, the effects of unionization, the minimum wage, and unemployment insurance.

    Covered by

    • · The History of Unions, Lesson 4 · Two ideas about who a union is for: the Knights and the AFL
    • · The History of Unions, Lesson 5 · Haymarket, 1886
    • · The History of Unions, Lesson 6 · Homestead, Pullman, and the weapon that actually broke strikes
    • · The History of Unions, Lesson 9 · 1935: the year organizing became a right (the Wagner Act)
    • · The History of Unions, Lesson 10 · The hole in the law: who the Wagner Act left out

    What we do and don't cover: Partial: the union clauses are taught at unusual depth — the circumstances that built the principal unions, the procedures (strikes, boycotts, collective bargaining under the Wagner Act), and the measured effects of unionization. The minimum wage and unemployment insurance are not taught.

  • 12.4.4

    Partially covered
    Explain the effects of international mobility of capital and labor on the U.S. economy.

    Covered by

    • · Mexico, Lesson 7 · Mexico rewrites its labor law, and the 68-year gap that explains why
    • · Mexico, Lesson 10 · The Rapid Response Mechanism: an international labor rule with teeth
    • · Mexico, Lesson 12 · The limits, honestly: the cases the United States lost

    What we do and don't cover: Partial: taught through one worked case — NAFTA→USMCA, capital mobility's effect on organizing and wages on both sides of the border, through to the Rapid Response Mechanism. Not a general treatment of factor mobility.

  • 12.2.2

    Partially covered
    Discuss the effects of changes in supply and/or demand on the relative scarcity, price, and quantity of particular products.

    Covered by

    • · Ep 1 · Price Shocks and Why You Keep Buying
    • · Ep 4 · From Luxury to the Cheapest Calorie

    What we do and don't cover: Partial: taught through real commodity markets — a frost in Brazil moving world coffee prices, and why inelastic demand absorbs the spike. Not a general supply-and-demand unit with curve-shifting exercises.

  • 12.6.1

    Partially covered
    Identify the gains in consumption and production efficiency from trade, with emphasis on the main products and changing geographic patterns of twentieth-century trade among countries in the Western Hemisphere.

    Covered by

    • · Ep 1 · Follow the Money: Bean to Cup
    • · Ep 2 · Who Gets Paid, Tea and Coffee Compared
    • · Ep 3 · The Commodity Trap
    • · Ep 12 · The Jimador's Share
    • · Ep 14 · Pattern 3: Labor Captures the Smallest Share (the smile curve)
    • · Ep 21 · The Smile Curve, Confirmed
    • · The Commodity Map itself, every episode pinned at its origin
    • · The Growing Belts map, production regions by latitude band and country
    • · Ep 1 · The Coffee Belt: Where Coffee Grows and Why
    • · Ep 3 · The Cacao Tree and the Narrowest Belt
    • · Ep 6 · Why Volcanic Soil Only

    What we do and don't cover: Partial: the geography of hemispheric trade in real products — coffee, sugar, chocolate — and who gains from it is the series' spine. The formal efficiency framework (comparative advantage by name) is not taught.

  • 12.6.2

    Partially covered
    Compare the reasons for and the effects of trade restrictions during the Great Depression compared with present-day arguments among labor, business, and political leaders over the effects of free trade on the economic and social interests of various groups of Americans.

    Covered by

    • · Ep 4 · The Hidden Costs of Cheap Sugar
    • · Mexico, Lesson 7 · Mexico rewrites its labor law, and the 68-year gap that explains why
    • · Mexico, Lesson 10 · The Rapid Response Mechanism: an international labor rule with teeth
    • · Mexico, Lesson 12 · The limits, honestly: the cases the United States lost

    What we do and don't cover: Partial: the present-day half is worked in depth — the sugar program's quotas and tariffs with their winners and losers, and the labor-side free-trade argument through NAFTA→USMCA. The Great Depression's trade restrictions (Smoot-Hawley) are not taught.

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 — the interpret-it standards only, and never the produce-it ones. One course, How to Read a Number, teaches the reading of published quantities: provenance, denominators, what a summary discarded, what a margin of error covers, correlation against causation, and the arithmetic of representation. It grades no arithmetic. Every assessment is scenario multiple-choice or a click-to-reveal self-check, and the learner is never asked to produce a number. So we claim the standards about interpreting and evaluating data, and we do NOT claim S-ID.1, S-ID.4, S-ID.6, S-ID.8, S-IC.2, S-IC.4 or S-IC.5, every one of which requires the student to construct a plot, fit a model, compute a correlation coefficient, run a simulation, or develop a margin of error. A course that never asks for those cannot claim them. If your mathematics requirement is assessed on students producing statistical work, this contributes to it and does not discharge it. We also claim nothing in algebra, functions, geometry or probability, because we teach none of it.
  • Science — one partial claim, via the shared NGSS file. California adopted the NGSS verbatim (September 4, 2013), so our one honest science claim — HS-ESS3-1, partial — comes through the shared NGSS mapping with the limit stated on the entry. We verified California's edits document: it touches seven clarification statements, none of them HS-ESS3-1. There is no laboratory work, no investigation, and no modelling in this catalog, and we will not claim more.
  • The California Civics flagship's structure lessons have mostly no California code to cite. California Civics: How Your State Government Works teaches the 1879 constitution, the plural executive (a Lieutenant Governor elected separately from the Governor), the 120-seat Legislature, the top-two primary, and AB 37's universal mail ballots — from California's own official sources. But the 1998 Principles of American Democracy standards are overwhelmingly FEDERAL: state government enters only through the comparative 12.7 standards (lawmaking, courts, local responsibilities — which the course backs) and direct democracy through 12.6.5. The plural executive, the Legislature's shape, and California's election on-ramps have no code to cite. The gap is in the standards, not the course.
  • The Great Migration — California's 1998 standards never name it. An entire course teaches the Great Migration, but the 1998 document contains no standard on it: 11.2's rural-to-urban migration is the European-immigration industrial city, and 11.10.5's civil-rights diffusion names the churches, not the Migration. The Migration's content maps only where the standards name its people and politics (11.10.1, 11.10.4). The gap is in the standards, not the lessons.
  • 10.2's named revolutions exclude Haiti. Our deep revolution is the Haitian Revolution — taught through to the 1825 indemnity. California's 10.2 compares the Glorious, American, and French Revolutions, and its philosopher list reaches Latin America only through Bolívar; Haiti is not named anywhere in the document. We do not stretch adjacency into coverage, so 10.2 is not claimed.
  • Most of the Grade 12 civics standards we checked. 12.1.1-12.1.4 (the political-philosophy genealogy and the Federalist Papers as texts), 12.2.2 (economic rights), 12.2.5 (reciprocity of rights and obligations as a named concept), 12.3.1-12.3.4 (civil society), 12.4.3 (identify your current representatives — a live exercise our courses prompt but do not assess), 12.5.2 (judicial activism versus restraint), 12.5.4 (the civil-rights controversy case list), 12.6.1/12.6.3 (party history, polls and campaign funding), 12.7.1/12.7.5/12.7.8 (intergovernmental conflict resolution, public-policy formation, presidential case studies), 12.8.1-12.8.3 (media influence on political life — our media-literacy course is consumer protection, not political media analysis), and 12.9.1-12.9.6/12.9.8 (comparative systems beyond the Poland standard) — the courses do not genuinely teach these, so we do not claim them.
  • Economics standards we checked and rejected — and no economic-systems home. All of Econ 12.1 (scarcity, opportunity cost, incentives as named concepts), 12.2.1/12.2.3-12.2.10 (market mechanics as a unit), 12.3 (fiscal and monetary policy), 12.4.2/12.4.3 (the current labor market and wage theory), and 12.5 (macroeconomic measurement) are not genuinely taught. The reciprocity-versus-market-economies content — taught directly and at length — has no home either: California's 1998 economics section contains no comparative-economic-systems standard (12.9.1 in the civics section touches economic philosophies, but as regime ideology, which our courses reach only for Poland). The gap is in the standards, not the lessons.
  • Health content areas beyond Personal and Community Health. Nutrition and Physical Activity, Growth/Development and Sexual Health, Injury Prevention and Safety, Alcohol/Tobacco/Other Drugs, and Mental/Emotional/Social Health were checked against the grades 9-12 standards and are not genuinely taught by these courses. The BVC drug-history curriculum teaches the HISTORY and policy of substances, not the health-behavior content the ATOD standards ask for (e.g., 1.1.A's health benefits of abstaining), so it claims nothing there.
  • PE performance and participation standards — and no technology standard to cite. Every Course 1 and Course 2 standard that asks a student to DEMONSTRATE movement, PARTICIPATE in activity, or achieve measured fitness levels (all of Standard 1's performance halves, 2.1-2.3, 2.5, and the Standard 3 self-responsibility-in-activity outcomes) is out of reach of an online course; we claim knowledge- and planning-side standards only. And unlike Arizona (S3.H2.L2) and Arkansas (PFL.3.3), California's 2005 document predates wearables and has no technology-for-activity standard — so our tracker course's strongest PE claim has no California code. The gap is in the standards, not the course.
  • The AI-literacy ladder, the language courses, and Learning How to Learn — deferred, not denied. California's closest frameworks (Computer Science, World Languages) have not been fetched and verified yet. Our rule is fetch-or-don't-cite, so these courses carry no California claims this pass.

Narrow this list

Filtering rewrites the address bar, so you can bookmark or send a colleague exactly the slice you are looking at.

Subject

Filter by course

Showing 38 of 74 California standards. Clear filters

See it for yourself

Don't take the mapping on trust. Open the lesson and check it against the standard. Every course publishes its sources too.

Browse the coursesPick a different state