Implementation Planning for State, District and Schools

SEA and District Supports

  • Idaho: English Language Arts and Math Tool Box. Idaho developed a tool box for ELA and mathematics which provides an overview of the standards, instructional materials and resources, professional development resources, and information on the new assessments.

Coherence between Standards Implementation and Educator Effectiveness Systems

  • Colorado: Superintendent and Principal Integrated Timelines. Local superintendents and principals below use this timeline to plan and implement standards, assessments and educator evaluation and support systems in an integrated way.
  • Massachusetts: Delivery Unit Supermemo. Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education leaders use the supermemo to streamline collaboration between content offices, assess progress of priority projects and co-problem solve when challenges arise.
  • New York: Metrics and Expectations. SEA staff, LEA leaders, school leaders and teachers use New York's Metrics & Expectations memo to understand the roles and responsibilities of the State's educators to fully implement and integrate the State's standards, assessments and educator support and evaluation system.

Professional Development

Instructional Supports

  • Kentucky: Teaching Tools. Teaching Tools are designed to provide teachers, schools and districts with a community of learning where standards-based resources can be shared and utilized.
  • Louisiana: Louisiana Teacher Toolbox. The Louisiana Department of Education created the Teacher Support Toolbox to help educators set goals, plan, teach and evaluate results.
  • North Carolina: Online Professional Development Modules. North Carolina's Professional Development toolkit has free online resources.
  • Southern Regional Education Board: State Implementation of Common Core State Standards, Professional Development. The Southern Regional Education Board created a brief that provides a descriptive overview of each state's efforts to train and support educators when preparing for and implementing the standards and aligned assessments through professional learning.

Principals

  • Colorado: Principals Communications Toolkit. The Colorado Department of Education is creating extensive communications resources to support districts in successful implementation of improved educator evaluations, revised Colorado Academic Standards and aligned assessments.
  • Connecticut: Connecticut Core Standards Classroom "Look Fors" This guide is intended to assist principals regarding the instructional shifts and rigor inherent in the standards.
  • Louisiana: Louisiana Leader: Performance Evaluation Rubric. This document highlights Louisiana's vision for principal professional learning.
  • Louisiana: Principals' Teaching and Learning Guidebook. The Louisiana Guidebook provides educators a simple reference guide for state policies and tools. It provides practitioners with detailed information on state policies, statewide programs, and access to tools that help individual educators achieve goals with their students. The intent provides a variety of options for use in the distinct, unique plans each district and school should have for itself and its students.
  • Washington: Transforming Professional Learning Project. The Transforming Professional Learning (WA-TPL) project is working with school and district partners to build a professional learning system in Washington State that supports career- and college-ready efforts with a focus on implementing Common Core State Standards and Next Generation Science Standards.

Communicating College- and Career-Ready Standards

Parents and Communities

  • Arizona: Arizona's College & Career Ready Standards. Expect More Arizona and the state's Public Engagement Task Force recently released a video to help inform and raise awareness of the standards among Arizonans.
  • California: Explaining Common Core to Californians. A Communications Toolkit. This online resource for educators and school districts includes a collection of research, recommendations, and sample communications designed to help educators increase their own and the public's understanding of the kinds of instruction, testing, and support needed.
  • Colorado: Back-to-School Communications Toolkit. The Colorado Department of Education released a new toolkit to jump-start communication efforts on the key topics of new academic standards, state tests and educator evaluations.
  • Hawaii: Letters Home. Hawaii shared their outreach efforts prior to the administration of the Smarter Balanced Assessment. They have sent letters home, targeted by a child's grade level. The letters included handouts to help explain the instructional shifts in English language arts and mathematics in elementary, middle and high school. Hawaii also has filmed videos with students and used teacher voices to get the message out about the new tests.
  • New York: Annotated Test Questions. These samples are resources to aid students and parents in understanding what the new standards will look like in the classroom.
  • Kentucky: Kentucky Teacher. The Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) publishes Kentucky Teacher to communicate directly with the state's 40,000 public school teachers. The stories of this award-winning publication include news, perspectives, and practical, workable ideas for guiding students to higher levels of achievement.
  • Hawaii: Hawaii's Common Core State Standards. Hawaii Common Core released the first of a series of Hawaii Common Core videos that will be produced. Superintendent Matayoshi explains Hawaii's 55by15 initiative

Supports for Students with Diverse Learning Needs

  • Louisiana: K-12 Math Planning Resources. Louisiana has compiled guidebooks to support teachers in supplementing math instruction for students. The models are provided as a starting point for teams of teachers to use in planning for the unique needs of their students.
  • Mississippi: Mississippi College- and Career-Readiness Standards Scaffolding Document. These documents provide teachers with a deeper understanding of the Standards as they plan for classroom instruction. These documents provide a close analysis of the requirements for student mastery.
  • New Jersey: English Language Learner Scaffolding Framework. This framework was designed to be used by bilingual, dual language, ESL and general education teachers in all program designs. Bilingual and dual language programs use the home language and a second language for instruction.
  • New York: Scaffolding Instruction for English Language Learners. The new Scaffolding Instruction for English Language Learners Resource Guides for ELA and Mathematics provide guidance to educators on how to take the curriculum materials on EngageNY and provide additional scaffolds for ELL students according to their level of English language proficiency.

Reviewing Instructional Materials for College- and Career-Ready Standards Alignment

Model Curriculum

  • Colorado: Curriculum Overview Samples. These voluntary resources provide guidance and structure for educators as they work to address grade-level expectations, evidence outcomes, and build 21st Century Skills.
  • New York: Common Core Curriculum. New York State Education Department provided curriculum models and units from preschool to grade 12 in ELA and mathematics.

Rubrics, Frameworks and Tools

  • California: California Learning Resource Network (CLRN). You can find free educational resources, reviews of online courses, and commercial electronic learning resources vetted by the California Learning Resource Network.
  • Hawaii: Hawaii Standards Toolkit. The Toolkit contains curriculum resources, example videos, webinars, power points and curriculum information for educators, administrators and district.
  • Louisiana: Instructional Materials Review. To support districts with curricular choices, Louisiana facilitated reviews of materials and benchmark assessments for English language arts and mathematics. For more information about resources Louisiana has made available for educators, please visit the Louisiana Department of Education website.
  • Maryland: Teaching and Learning, Reading/English Language Arts. The frameworks identify the essential skills and knowledge that a student would need in order to master the grade specific standards. These frameworks were developed with the input of educators across the state, who identified the essential skills and knowledge connected with each standard.