This study examined the impact of the levels of fidelity of teacher implementation of a research-based middle school mathematics program, implemented systemically across a district, on student achievement benchmarks. By examining the systemic implementation based on the level of fidelity to the written curriculum, this quantitative study sought to…

Content standards, not performance standards, have been almost the sole focus of state policies and recent conversations about academic standards. Without rigorous content and performance standards, we cannot adequately prepare students for the global marketplace. A recent AIR study shows that state performance standards are consistently low and…

The United States is transforming how it assesses the academic attainment of its schoolchildren. These changes will come, in part, with the implementation of the new Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) and Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortia (SBAC) assessments in the spring of 2015, as well as other…

In this article, the author discusses how to implement the Common Core State Standards in the classroom. She presents examples and activities that will leave teachers feeling "rosy" about tackling the new standards. She breaks down important benchmarks and shows how other teachers are doing the Core--and loving it!

This report presents a multi-year study of how states are implementing their state college- and career-readiness standards. In this report, the Southern Regional Education Board's (SREB's) Benchmarking State Implementation of College- and Career-Readiness Standards project studied state efforts in 2014-15 and 2015-16 to foster effective…

Math in Common® (MiC) is a five-year initiative that supports a formal network of 10 California school districts as they implement the Common Core State Standards in mathematics (CCSS-M) across grades K-8. As the MiC initiative moves into its second year, one of the central activities that each of the districts is undergoing to support CCSS…

Early childhood teachers are rightly concerned with implementing a system that was, at least in the initial stages, designed with a different set of teachers in mind--teachers of older students who have standardized achievement data. In most states, policy, practices, and guidance for early childhood teachers are just now being developed or…

All of the 15 states in this study have recently been involved in school accountability system reform. Since 2011, the states have taken advantage of a federal program to give them flexibility around certain accountability requirements of the "No Child Left Behind Act" of 2001 (NCLB), the most recent reauthorization of the Elementary and…

Implementation of college- and career-readiness standards is some of the most important work currently underway in states to improve student achievement and public education overall. SREB examined the efforts of 14 states--including 11 SREB states--to support implementation of new college- and career-readiness standards. The goal of the research…

By 2012, all of the states in this study had started implementing new or revised teacher and leader evaluation systems. The systems include many and varying updates. In some cases, the updates were designed to meet conditions for a state's "Race to the Top" grant. In others, the updates were made to meet conditions for a state's waiver…

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) represent the first time that nearly every state has set common expectations for what students should know and be able to do. In the past, each state set its own standards, and the results varied widely. And while states collectively developed these common standards, decisions about the curriculum and…

The Civil Rights Research Roundtable on Education is an initiative of the Warren Institute that convenes an ongoing learning community composed of leading national civil rights organizations to discuss the latest educational research and evidence-based practices related to civil rights goals in education. This research brief reviews the research…

State-level policymakers, local-level administrators, and teachers alike are interested in how standards actually apply to classroom learning. This paper presents answers to questions that policymakers and educators should consider before implementing standards-based education at the local level. The following questions help sort through the…