What This Skill Does

This skill compares two or more band-tagged frameworks and produces a framework-neutral topic matrix as its primary output. Its input is the output of the Developmental Band Translator skill — one output per framework. Every framework is treated as an equal participant: topics present in any framework appear as rows in the matrix, and a framework's absence at a given theme × band is shown as an explicit "—" gap, not an omission. This makes the primary output useful for identifying what any framework lacks, not just where frameworks agree.

If a reference framework is also supplied, the skill additionally produces a secondary reference-centric crosswalk document — a Markdown document that a teacher or PLC facilitator can open and use directly for a professional discussion, organised under five required sections: Convergence, Divergence, Unique Content, Sequencing Differences, and Questions for PLC. The secondary document and its associated CSV are only produced when a reference framework is supplied.

The skill is deliberately additive, not reductive. It does not merge the frameworks into a single synthesised schema. It does not rewrite statements into a common voice. Each framework's content appears in the output in the original words the framework used, attributed by name. This is a design decision grounded in Martone & Sireci (2009): alignment work that hides framework distinctiveness loses the very information a PLC needs to make a planning decision.

The skill is opinionated about the distinction between "cross-framework agreement" and "cross-framework coincidence". Two frameworks addressing the same topic at the same band is convergence only if they also treat the topic at comparable depth and intent. Where that is unclear, the skill flags the pairing as apparent convergence, teacher confirmation needed rather than silently counting it as agreement.

Evidence Foundation

Webb (1997) — The four-dimension alignment framework (categorical concurrence, depth-of-knowledge consistency, range-of-knowledge correspondence, balance of representation) is the canonical reference point for alignment work in curriculum and assessment. This skill operationalises categorical concurrence (do the frameworks address the same topics?) and range (do the ages match?) at the school-band level. Depth-of-knowledge and balance are deliberately not assessed automatically; the Questions for PLC section surfaces them for human discussion.

Porter (2002) and Porter et al. (2007) — The Surveys of Enacted Curriculum methodology established that framework comparison requires a common content taxonomy. The theme taxonomy — whether supplied via theme_taxonomy or derived from all input frameworks — serves this role. The skill inherits the Porter methodology's commitment to making the comparison visible and defensible: every cell in every table traces back to specific items in specific frameworks.

Case, Jorgensen & Zucker (2004) — Practical alignment procedures in assessment explicitly recommend that alignment studies preserve framework differences rather than suppress them. The framework-neutral matrix exists for exactly this reason: a theme row where the reference framework cell is "—" is as informative as a row where it matches others. A crosswalk that showed only overlap would erase the most important planning signal.

Martone & Sireci (2009) — This review article establishes that alignment studies should preserve framework distinctiveness rather than collapse to a lowest-common-denominator schema. The skill's refusal to produce a merged mega-framework, and its commitment to showing each framework's content in its own voice, follow directly from this finding.