Implementing the Common Core State Standards: Year Two Progress Report from the Great City Schools

This second annual report on Common Core implementation in forty-eight of the country’s largest urban districts covers a range of topics: professional development, strategies for measuring and collecting data, communication efforts, and the inclusion of ELL students and students with special needs. The survey found that districts are struggling to handle special populations and integrate technology in the classroom and that implementation is lagging, particularly at the middle and high school levels. But not all is gloomy; the results also show promising trends. Nearly all districts reported that CCSS will be fully implemented by the 2014–15 school year, and about half said the standards will be fully implemented by the end of this year, indicating that districts are rolling along, and perhaps even speeding up, their implementation plans. While the authors of the report acknowledge that districts have improved by leaps and bounds since last year’s survey, they reiterate that there is much ground left to cover.