Teachers and administrators often admit that they do not know their standards intimately. Why? Many share it is because they assume the purchased programs they use for classroom instruction accurately address what the standards expect in and across grade levels. In other words, if the program indicates that a particular standard is addressed in a unit or lesson (or series of units or lessons), the assumption is that the standard is addressed in its entirety, which is not necessarily the case!

In this article, I will propose a philosophy for educational leaders - that leads to a positive learning impact.

This motto made famous in Alexandre Dumas’ “The Three Musketeers”, harkens to a collective passion for making a team effort. In a curriculum-design context, the one represents a student’s systemic learning journey, which culminates with a momentous walk across a stage to receive a diploma. The all represents the collective educators who influence the student’s learning journey. This oftentimes includes forty to sixty-five teachers in a K-12 educational system (Jacobs, 2006). Maybe your school is smaller; and therefore, less teachers in a K-12 journey, the point is the same: all need to focus on the one.