(This commentary showtime appeared in Acme-Ed.)

California, like many states, is embarking on an ambitious re wiring of its public school system. By the 2014-xv school year, it plans to implement new Mutual Cadre academic standards in English and math for all grades. The new standards were adopted by the State Board of Education only eighteen months ago. Having all of our state's teachers and schools on board with this shift in cadre content in just another two-and-a-half years would be an impressive feat of bureaucratic derring-practise. The last fourth dimension the state undertook a similar endeavor with the current academic content standards – under an even longer time frame and in better fiscal straits – nosotros didn't meet our lofty goals so well.

Because this undertaking is as well important to implement poorly or unevenly, Public Advocates is calling for an contained report of how well California's Common Cadre implementation is proceeding. Adopting the standards was the easy function. Now the state must simultaneously modify its teacher education programs so that all new teachers are prepared to teach the revised standards, prefer and disseminate curriculum materials integrating the new standards, ensure current teachers receive appropriate professional development in how to adapt their curriculum, and build new assessments to measure student progress in learning the new standards.

The Department of Educational activity and the State Board are doing what they should be doing in developing an implementation programme. Still, only by examining how well we're building this plane before accept-off can the powers that be place deficiencies and engage in the timely re-engineering needed to ensure no child'southward exposure to the new Mutual Core  standards substantially lags behind others'.

Recent history reminds united states of america that having an ambitious plan alone isn't plenty. When the state imposed a new high school exit exam in 1999 based on California's so relatively new English language Linguistic communication Arts and Mathematics academic content standards, it wisely required that the implementation of the exam and students' exposure to the ELA and math content exist studied by an independent contractor. That contractor, known as HumRRO, has published a series of biennial reports, the almost revealing of which occurred in the years leading up to the implementation of the exit exam's diploma penalization. The State Board of Education delayed the diploma penalty for ii years based on HumRRO's reports of widespread diff and bereft access to math and ELA standards-based content prior to the initial exam implementation date of June 2004.

HumRRO's later bear witness showed that, fifty-fifty during the 2005-06 academic twelvemonth when the diploma penalty took issue, many students still were not being exposed to the English language and math standards covered by the examination. Mind you, at that betoken, those content standards had been adopted fully eight years earlier and the standards-aligned exit exam requirement had been imposed six years prior. Nevertheless, at the start of the 2005-06 twelvemonth, HumRRO plant that fewer than half of high schools had fully aligned their curriculum to the material tested on the exit exam. Ane in seven at-risk students in the class of 2006 reported that they had not been taught most of the English topics tested; one in half dozen such students made the same report for math. Of the schools that responded to HumRRO's survey, 12 percent of English departments and 8 percent of math departments reported that that they were operating with more than 25 pct of their teachers lacking appropriate credentials, and less than a tertiary of high school principals reported that most all of their teachers had received professional development on how to teach the content standards tested on the exam.

Whether through an NCLB waiver, under the impending reauthorization of the Uncomplicated and Secondary Education Act, or under the inevitable revisions to the state'southward ain Academic Performance Index, California in the non-likewise-afar futurity will be operating nether an accountability system significantly based on Common Core assessment performance. Waiting until subsequently we've imposed the new standards on all students and schools to see if nosotros take effectively implemented them makes no sense. It is imperative that we examine at present whether implementation is proceeding unevenly and if so, whether we are systematically underserving certain sub-populations like English language learners or students with disabilities or certain sectors similar low-income districts or depression-performing schools. Information technology is amend to know where the weaknesses in Common Cadre implementation lie and then that they tin be addressed by policy makers that much sooner.

Some may experience that we simply cannot beget whatever boosted expense in these tight fiscal times. Still, even before exploring the possible ways in which federal or private foundation dollars might help support such a study, the state itself should acknowledge the value of the small-scale investment hither. For a few hundred g dollars, the state will know if its $fifty billion educational enterprise is on the right track or not. Seems like a no-brainer.

Fortunately, Assemblymember Ricardo Lara (D-Bong Gardens), who has worked tirelessly to ensure that every pupil has an equal opportunity to learn and be educated, will partner with Public Advocates and volition carry a pecker to found a Common core implementation study.  We hope the entire education community will get behind this important measure out, AB 2116.  Hopefully, this time we make sure our new standards are implemented fully and fairly.

John Affeldt is Managing Chaser at Public Advocates Inc. a nonprofit law business firm and advocacy arrangement and a leading vocalisation on educational disinterestedness issues. He has been recognized by California Lawyer Magazine equally a California Attorney of the Year, The Recorder equally an Attorney of the Twelvemonth and a Leading Plaintiff Lawyer in America by Lawdragon Magazine.

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