It has been six years since California adopted the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). District leaders have been busy building capacity and developing infrastructure to support effective CCSS implementation, while teachers have been working hard to implement standards-aligned instruction that supports academic success for all students. In a state…

Susana Velasco always thought she designed lessons for her kindergarten students to help them meet the academic standards for their grade. But now she feels better equipped to adapt instruction to meet the needs of all the children in her class--a skill she has developed through her school's participation in the Literacy Design Collaborative…

Since adopting the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in 2010, California has given districts significant flexibility in how they support teachers in implementing the standards. This flexibility, along with vastly differing local and regional contexts, has resulted in a wide variety of district-level approaches to training teachers in content…

In California, as in many other states across the nation, implementing the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) has been a complex endeavor impacting every public school educator. Not surprisingly, California districts have encountered bumps along the way in their efforts to provide much-needed support to all K-12 teachers as they continue to learn…

In December 2015, President Barack Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which replaced No Child Left Behind (NCLB), as the nation's major law governing public schools. ESSA retains the requirement that states test all students in reading and math in grades three through eight and once in high school, as well as the requirement that…

Serving a working-class suburb of the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the Hawthorne School District (HSD) is a small district with 11 schools: seven elementary schools, three middle schools, and one dependent charter high school. HSD's students are predominantly from low-income families (87%). Most students (71%) are Latino/a and about fifth (21%)…

Within the US Department of Education's new flexibility initiative, there are three key and fundamental areas of focus, each referred to as a "principle." The second of these is that State Education Agencies (SEAs) must develop and implement differentiated recognition, accountability, and support to assure that all students are taught by…

In a 2012 paper for the Center for American Progress, "The State of Evaluation Reform," Patrick McGuinn (Drew University) identified the opportunities and challenges facing education agencies in Race to the Top (RTTT) grant-winning states as they prepared for the implementation of new teacher evaluation systems. The 2012 study undertook…