Background: In recent years, school districts have experienced a complex policy environment with myriad reforms aimed at addressing longstanding and historically entrenched disparities in opportunities and outcomes between racially minoritized students and White students. One such reform is standards-based accountability, with its emphasis on…

Across many international contexts, more recent standards-based and other educational reforms have largely intended to transform teaching. Given the importance of teacher learning to such transformations, we argue that a learning-focused support approach will be essential if such reforms are to be productively taken up by schools and teachers. We…

This article analyzes the messages and strategies of a sample of education interest groups, and assesses their interpretations of the political context to understand how the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) lost both political and public support during the crucial period of 2013-2014. Based on interviews with representatives of 19 interest…

In response to the global pressure that has led to an increased emphasis on international comparisons of student achievement since the 1980s, multiple federal reforms aimed at producing greater consistency in curricula have been initiated in the United States. The purpose of this study was to examine the feasibility of a national curriculum and…

This qualitative study of U.S. international schools overseas explores the implementation of the Common Core State Standards in six U.S. international schools overseas (The Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Kuwait). The Common Core was introduced in 2009 in the U.S. as a national (not federal) 'standards-based reform'. Such…

The Common Core State Standards in Mathematics and Next Generation Science Standards encourage substantial shifts in teaching, but how to enact change is not specified. This mixed-methods exploratory study shows how different implementation supports were related to teachers' use of standards-aligned instructional practices in the Chicago Public…

This article examines the Common Core State Standards Initiative and provides a policy analysis of issues concerning its implementation as a policy initiative to achieve education reform in the U.S. Aside from highlighting developments concerning this policy initiative, it examines the origins of this movement toward adopting common core state…

The Common Core State Standards in Mathematics (CCSS-M) were released in 2010 with a goal to improve critical thinking skills and prepare all students to thrive in college, careers, and as informed citizens. The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) followed in 2013. Using districtwide surveys of students in grades 6-8, conducted annually from…

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…

This study considers how configurations of leadership practices impact perceptions of implementation during large-scale reform: implementation in the United States of Common Core State Standards. Comments of 951 respondents to a national teacher survey were examined. Analysis revealed the hybrid nature of leadership enactment with a range of…

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) represent an historic shift in K-12 curricular policy. Yet,few have explicitly traced the lineage of the CCSS and linked them to the decades-old standards-based reform movement. This essay situates the CCSS within the larger historical context of standards-based reform. It concludes with a discussion of…

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) began to take form when dozens of educators from across the country were led by governors and chief state school officers in gathering and reviewing the academic standards of states that had the best outcomes. Their goal was to determine what the current best academic standards were in the country and then…

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…

Opting out of state standardized tests has recently become a movement--a series of grassroots, organized efforts to refuse to take high-stakes state standardized tests. In particular, the opt-out rates in the state of New York reached 20% in 2015 and 21% in 2016. This study aims to illustrate the social networks and examine the paradoxes that have…

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) was originally promoted in 2010 by a centrist bi-partisan coalition that included Democrats interested in leveraging more rigorous academic standards to improve educational opportunity and moderate probusiness Republicans concerned about workforce development. As states moved to implement the new Standards…