Adapting to Common Core Mathematics in Odds-Beating Elementary Schools

• In Event: 35.082 - Roundtable Session 14
  In Roundtable Session: 35.082-4 - Common Core Implementation and Politics

Abstract

The Common Core Learning Standards (CCLS) and Annual Professional Performance Review (APPR) are two policy drivers in Race-to-the-Top (RTTT), the complex educational reform intended to institutionalize innovative changes in the ways schools are organized and how teachers teach in classrooms. What can be learned to inform policy and practice from educators in socioeconomically and ethnically diverse schools with significantly better performance on CCLS-aligned mathematics assessments (i.e. “odds-beating” schools)? Results from a mixed-methods comparative case study of nine elementary schools indicate that how mathematics teachers, especially those weak in the subject, adapt to these changes is shaped by school context. Classrooms in schools that facilitated teachers’ professional adaptation had not only more focused yet safe environments but better outcomes for students.

Authors

• Kathryn S. Schiller, University at Albany - SUNY

• John Costello, Uncommon Schools

• Kristen C. Wilcox, University at Albany - SUNY