Dive Brief:
- In a letter posted online to the website of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the organization's chief executive officer Sue Desmond-Hellman admits they "underestimated" the resources and support needed to implement Common Core standards in U.S. schools.
- She defines one of the primary challenges as that fact that Common Core-aligned resources don't exist in many districts, and the burden for creating them has fallen to teachers, who largely don't have extra time.
- Desmond-Hellman also laments missed opportunities to engage educators, parents and communities around the standards and their implementation to maximize the benefits of the standards, which she continues to defend.
Dive Insight:
Despite the missteps, the Gates Foundation will now "double down" on Common Core alignment, the letter notes, with additional attention being paid to strengthening resources for schools and teachers, like offering free curricula online and through a partnerships with Better Lesson, EngageNY, LearnZillion and EdReports.org.
The Obama administration's support of the standards may have hurt the push to advance Common Core, given the highly polarized political climate in the U.S, and a lack of funding at the state level surely obfuscated the issue. Yet traditionally red states like Kentucky were able to implement the standards. In that case, the Hechinger Report writes, state education commissioner Terry Holliday is largely responsible. He took the time to visit the state's 173 school districts, soliciting feedback from school leaders and talking to teachers.
Communication surrounding Common Core, as with any tech rollout, is key to creating transparency and community buy-in from school staff, parents and district officials alike. That's a simple lesson, but one that's difficult to execute given the face time time needed between state-level leaders and school staff. Scott Sargrad, managing director of K-12 education policy at the Center for American Progress, told the Hechinger Report, “Kentucky is a great example what can happen when all stakeholders are involved from the beginning.”