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Illinois standards alignment

Designed for high school. Below is every Illinoisstandard 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.

18
standards mapped
7
fully covered
11
partially covered
5
frameworks

Read this before you rely on it

  • We mapped this ourselves. This alignment was done by Better Vice Club against the published standards. It has not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by Illinois'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.

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Showing 18 standards in Social Studies. Clear filters

Illinois · Social Studies

Illinois Learning Standards for Social Science — Civics, High School (SS.CV)

Illinois Learning Standards for Social Science, Grades 9-12 (2017) · Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) · retrieved 2026-07-18

Illinois's high-school Civics strand states disciplinary concepts, not course benchmarks — no standard names a state's structure. The Illinois Civics flagship (written from Illinois's own sources) therefore maps onto the institution and participation standards (SS.CV.1, SS.CV.2, SS.CV.3), and the general U.S. civics ladder onto the constitutional-system standards (SS.CV.4, SS.CV.7, SS.CV.10). Illinois's own structure — the plural executive, the Cutback Amendment, home rule — has no code that names it; see notClaimed.

Read the source document →

  • SS.CV.9.9-12

    Partially covered
    Evaluate public policies in terms of intended and unintended outcomes and related consequences.

    Covered by

    • · How a Bill Becomes Law, Lesson 8 · Tracking a bill and making your voice heard
    • · Ep 18 · Bolivia's Bet (Bolivia's legal coca model against U.S.-funded eradication)
    • · Ep 18 · The Balloon Effect
    • · Ep 17 · Where the Poppy Grows (Afghanistan and the Golden Crescent)
    • · Ep 16 · The Justice Gap
    • · Ep 17 · The Scott County Lesson
    • · Ep 17 · Treatment Versus Punishment

    What we do and don't cover: Taught through one worked domain — drug policy — evaluated for unintended consequences: the War on Drugs' foreign-policy and incarceration effects, and how a needle-exchange ban helped drive the Scott County HIV outbreak. Not a general public-policy-analysis unit.

Illinois · Social Studies

Illinois Learning Standards for Social Science — History, High School (SS.H)

Illinois Learning Standards for Social Science, Grades 9-12 (2017) · Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) · retrieved 2026-07-18

Illinois's History strand is stated as historical-thinking concepts (causation, sources, the struggle for justice) rather than an era survey, which is where the catalog's commodity, labor, civil-rights, and Cold-War history maps.

Read the source document →

  • SS.H.3.9-12

    Covered
    Evaluate the methods utilized by people and institutions to promote change.

    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
    • · 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
    • · Ep 4 · The Triangular Trade and the Middle Passage
    • · Ep 4 · Resistance and Revolution
    • · Ep 11 · The Maroons
    • · Ep 11 · The Haitian Revolution
    • · Ep 11 · The Debt of Freedom
    • · Ep 11 · The Black Jacobins (C.L.R. James)

    Note: The methods of change are taught in depth: the Gilded Age labor movement's strikes and organizing, Solidarność undoing a communist state, and resistance to slavery from Maroon communities to the Haitian Revolution.

  • SS.H.7.9-12

    Covered
    Identify the role of individuals, groups, and institutions in people’s struggle for safety, freedom, equality and justice.

    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 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
    • · Ep 11 · The Debt of Freedom
    • · Ep 11 · The Black Jacobins (C.L.R. James)
    • · The Great Migration, Lesson 11 · Politics & civil rights

    Note: Directly the catalog's spine: A. Philip Randolph and the labor half of the civil-rights movement, the industrial labor movement, enslaved people's resistance and the Haitian Revolution, and the Great Migration's political power.

  • SS.H.9.9-12

    Covered
    Analyze the relationship between historical sources and the secondary interpretations made from them.

    Covered by

    • · 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 10 · The Oral History That Survived (recovering Nathan “Nearest” Green's erased role)
    • · Ep 19 · Peer Review Versus Press Release
    • · Every course's Sources bibliography, with per-claim verification
    • · Ep 4 · Whose Voice Tells the Story

    Note: Exactly the Whose Voice method: primary accounts read against each other and against the secondary record, and the Nathan “Nearest” Green lesson teaching why the oral and documentary records diverge — source and interpretation held apart on purpose.

  • SS.H.1.9-12

    Partially covered
    Evaluate how historical developments were shaped by time and place as well as broader historical contexts.

    Covered by

    • · 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
    • · Ep 1 · Climate Change Is Redrawing the Map
    • · Ep 3 · A Two-Degree Threat
    • · Ep 10 · Karst Limestone and Bourbon
    • · Ep 1 · Assignment, Option B, assess a producing country's climate viability and defend the assessment
    • · Ep 3 · Conquest and the Great Reversal
    • · Ep 4 · The Triangular Trade and the Middle Passage
    • · Ep 11 · The Triangular Trade
    • · Ep 12 · Burning the Books (the destruction of the Mesoamerican codices)
    • · Ep 15 · From Sacred to Commodity
    • · Ep 2 · The Tea Plant and Its Climate Zones
    • · Ep 3 · The Big Producers and the Cacao Varieties
    • · Ep 4 · From New Guinea to the New World

    What we do and don't cover: Taught as the series' method — how climate, latitude, and place shaped where commodities grew and what happened there (the Columbian Exchange, the agricultural hearths) — that lens applied to commodity history, not a general survey of causation.

  • SS.H.8.9-12

    Partially covered
    Analyze key historical events and contributions of individuals through a variety of perspectives, including those of historically underrepresented groups.

    Covered by

    • · Ep 4 · The Triangular Trade and the Middle Passage
    • · Ep 4 · Whose Voice Tells the Story (Equiano, 1789; Mary Prince, 1831)
    • · The Great Migration, Lesson 6 · The Black press as engine: the Chicago Defender
    • · The Great Migration, Lesson 7 · The Harlem Renaissance & the New Negro
    • · 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

    What we do and don't cover: Underrepresented perspectives are centered — formerly enslaved writers (Equiano, Mary Prince) on the Middle Passage and plantation, the Harlem Renaissance and the Black press — but as commodity and labor history, not a comprehensive multi-perspective survey.

  • SS.H.10.9-12

    Partially covered
    Analyze the causes and effects of global conflicts and economic crises.

    Covered by

    • · Ep 17 · The Opium Wars
    • · Ep 17 · Lin Zexu's Letter
    • · 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: Taught through two worked cases — the Opium Wars and their long consequences for China, and the Cold War's end in Poland — rather than as a survey of global conflicts and crises.

Illinois · Social Studies

Illinois Learning Standards for Social Science — Economics and Financial Literacy, High School (SS.EC)

Illinois Learning Standards for Social Science, Grades 9-12 (2017) · Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) · retrieved 2026-07-18

The BVC series supplies the Economics strand through real commodity markets — scarcity and incentives, market regulation, trade, and globalization. Illinois's Financial Literacy sub-strand (SS.EC.FL) is not taught here; see notClaimed.

Read the source document →

Illinois · Social Studies

Illinois Learning Standards for Social Science — Geography, High School (SS.G)

Illinois Learning Standards for Social Science, Grades 9-12 (2017) · Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) · retrieved 2026-07-18

The BVC Commodity Map's climate-and-place, migration, and globalization work maps onto Illinois's human- and environmental-geography standards.

Read the source document →

Illinois · Social Studies

Illinois Learning Standards for Social Science — Inquiry Skills, High School (SS.IS)

Illinois Learning Standards for Social Science, Grades 9-12 (2017) · Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) · retrieved 2026-07-18

Illinois threads Inquiry Skills through every social-science discipline; the catalog's media-literacy method and the Coffee project's sourced research map onto the source-evaluation and evidence standards.

Read the source document →

  • SS.IS.4.9-12

    Covered
    Gather and evaluate information from multiple sources while considering the origin, credibility, point of view, authority, structure, context, and corroborative value of the sources.

    Covered by

    • · Ep 19 · Peer Review Versus Press Release
    • · Every course's Sources bibliography, with per-claim verification
    • · Ep 1 · Reading a Coffee Ad
    • · Ep 2 · Reading a Tea Ad
    • · Ep 3 · Reading a Chocolate Ad
    • · Ep 4 · Whose Voice Tells the Story (reading a text for what it leaves out)
    • · Ep 11 · Tiki and the Tropical Paradise
    • · Ep 15 · The Language of Doubt
    • · Ep 1 · Assignment, Option B, 3+ peer-reviewed sources and an APA bibliography
    • · Ep 1 · Assignment, Option C, interview ethics: informed consent, right to review
    • · Spotting Misleading Marketing, Lesson 3 · Weasel words and what the fine print takes back
    • · Spotting Misleading Marketing, Lesson 5 · Fake reviews, astroturfing, and undisclosed #ads

    Note: Source evaluation — origin, credibility, point of view, corroboration — is modelled in every media-literacy episode and required in the Coffee project's sourced, cited research.

  • SS.IS.5.9-12

    Partially covered
    Identify evidence that draws information from multiple sources to revise or strengthen claims.

    Covered by

    • · Ep 15 · Doubt Is Our Product
    • · Ep 19 · Peer Review Versus Press Release
    • · Ep 20 · The Ban Against the Evidence (the UK banning khat against its own scientific advice)
    • · Ep 1 · Assignment, all four options are 2-3 week research projects requiring synthesis across sources

    What we do and don't cover: Building and testing claims against multiple sources is taught through the fallacy-and-evidence lessons and the Coffee project's synthesis. Only the Coffee episode ships the graded version.

  • SS.IS.6.9-12

    Partially covered
    Construct and evaluate explanations and arguments using multiple sources and relevant, verified information.

    Covered by

    • · Ep 1 · Assignment, Option D, a 1,200-1,500 word research paper with a required counterargument section
    • · Ep 1 · Assignment, all four options are 2-3 week research projects requiring synthesis across sources
    • · Ep 4 · Blood-Sweetened Luxury (the abolitionist sugar boycott)
    • · Ep 8 · Selling Prohibition
    • · Ep 15 · Torches of Freedom
    • · Ep 17 · Lin Zexu's Letter (using Britain's own values against its opium policy)

    What we do and don't cover: The Coffee project's argument paper asks for exactly this — a thesis defended from verified, cited sources with a counterargument — but it is one optional project in one episode, not a programme.

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 — nothing. This catalog does no mathematics instruction, so it meets no Illinois Common Core (Illinois Learning Standards) mathematics standard.
  • Science — one partial claim, via the shared NGSS file. Illinois adopted the NGSS verbatim (January 2014) as its science standards, so our one honest science claim — HS-ESS3-1, partial — comes through the shared NGSS mapping with the limit stated on the entry. There is no laboratory work, investigation, or modelling in this catalog, and we will not claim more.
  • Financial Literacy (SS.EC.FL) — nothing. Illinois's Economics strand carries a six-standard Financial Literacy sub-strand (income strategies, budgeting, interest and inflation, credit, investing, insurance). This catalog teaches no personal finance, so it claims none of SS.EC.FL.1-6.
  • The Illinois Civics flagship's Illinois-specific structure has no Illinois code to cite. Illinois Civics teaches the 1970 Constitution, the plural executive (uniquely both a Comptroller and a Treasurer), the partisan-elected Supreme Court, the uniquely narrow Legislative-Article initiative and the 1980 Cutback Amendment, and one of the nation's strongest home-rule traditions — from Illinois's own official sources. But the 2017 Social Science Standards are DISCIPLINARY CONCEPTS: no standard names a state's structure, so these lessons map only onto the abstract institution and participation standards (SS.CV.1, SS.CV.2, SS.CV.3). The gap is in the standards, not the course.
  • Civics standards we checked and rejected. SS.CV.5 (civic dispositions and diverse perspectives as a named concept) and SS.CV.6 (political parties, the media, and public interest groups — our media literacy is consumer protection, not political-media analysis) are not genuinely taught, so we do not claim them.
  • The disciplinary standards we read and did not claim. Across History, Economics, and Geography we claim only the concept standards the catalog genuinely teaches. SS.H.2/4/5/6/11/12, SS.EC.2-4/6-8, and SS.G.1-5/7/9/10 were checked and not claimed — the change-and-continuity, market-mechanics, macroeconomic-indicator, mapping-tool, and culture standards are not this catalog's subject. The reject list is the evidence the map was not padded.

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.

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