Lack of Staff and Expertise Hinders Common Core Implementation
The vast majority of states adopted the
Common Core State Standards (CCSS)
in 2010, the first year they were available, but lack of adequate staff and
expertise on CCSS presented a major challenge to the implementation, according
to a new report from the United States Department
of Education.
The report, "State
Implementation of Reforms Promoted Under the Recovery Act," evaluated
state-level implementation of educational reforms implemented under the
Recovery Act in the
years 2009-2010 and 2010-2011. The Recovery Act required state education agencies
to commit to four key areas of reform in order to qualify for funding
under the act. One of those key areas was adoption of "rigorous college-ready
and career-ready standards and high-quality assessments." The other areas were
establishment of data systems for performance improvement, improved teacher
effectiveness and support for low-performing schools.
Since the report covers only the 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 school years, and the
CCSS were not yet available for adoption in 2009-2010, that aspect of the report
covers only the 2010-2011 school year.
Key findings of the report for the 2010-2011 school year:
- Forty-three states adopted the CCSS in math and English language arts,
one state adopted CCSS in English language arts only and four states updated
their own state standards;
- Thirty-seven SEAs provided, guided or funded professional development on
the CCSS to staff of local education agencies, including in-person
train-the-trainer sessions and online professional development;
- Twenty-nine SEAs provided instructional materials or curriculum
assistance for the CCSS; and
- All of the states that adopted the CCSS also joined either the
Partnership for Assessment of
Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) or the
Smarter Balanced Assessment
Consortium (SBAC).
Sixty-seven of the SEAs that implemented any of the reforms related to CCSS
reported that they experienced one or more major challenges. According to the
report, the biggest challenge was lack of sufficient staff or expertise to
successfully implement the CCSS. Fifty percent of the SEAs didn't have enough
staff or expertise in developing instructional materials aligned to CCSS; 36
percent didn't have enough staff to implement CCSS; and 55 percent didn't have
enough staff or expertise to develop interim or formative assessments to measure
student mastery of CCSS.
The full report, "State Implementation of Reforms Promoted Under the Recovery
Act," is available as a downloadable PDF from the
Institute of Education Sciences
site.
About the Author
Leila Meyer is a technology writer based in British Columbia. She can be reached at [email protected].