The Common Core State Standards in mathematics were built on progressions: narrative documents describing the progression of a topic across a number of grade levels, informed both by research on children's cognitive development and by the logical structure of mathematics. 

The progressions can explain why standards are sequenced the way they are, point out cognitive difficulties and pedagogical solutions, and give more detail on particularly knotty areas of the mathematics. They would be useful in teacher preparation and professional development, organizing curriculum, and writing textbooks. Progressions documents also provide a transmission mechanism between mathematics education research and standards.

For more information on the project, please visit the project website.