This qualitative study focuses on school administrators' understandings and actions as leaders of the Common Core reform. In interviews with eight school and district leaders from five diverse districts in Pennsylvania, several aspects of Common Core, or PA Core, implementation were consistent across regardless of student population demographics…

The Common Core State Standards Initiative (Common Core) was spearheaded by policy entrepreneurs, unveiled nationally in 2010, and initially received strong support from leaders in state and federal government, philanthropic foundations, the business sector, and teacher unions. However, the reform came into the crosshairs of an ideologically wide…