When the (education) revolution comes . . .

The Common Core State Standards could be a game changer, catapulting American education to the top. But serious and successful work must be done with leadership, communication, teachers, and principals to get it there.

It is the year 2033, and Americans are feeling pretty good about themselves. After years of hard-fought efforts to improve public schools, researchers working across a range of disciplines can finally show that the achievement gap between wealthier students and their low-income peers has been significantly reduced, and a significant majority of American students of all groups and subgroups are meeting internationally benchmarked college- and career-ready standards.

Graduation rates among all demographic groups are higher than ever, and a majority of students across racial groups are going to college or pursuing postsecondary education and/or career training. And, when they enroll in postsecondary institutions, they stay there. Employers report that they’re now turning away qualified candidates for the positions they seek to fill, and U.S. students are the envy of their international peers (take that, Finland!) because of their strong academic knowledge and their ability to innovate, communicate, and collaborate with others.

Meanwhile, education ministers from a group of countries around the globe have gathered in a nondescript Washington office building to hear a panel of U.S. educators talk about the 20-year education transformation now dubbed “the New American Dream.” They want to know how a nation as large and diverse as the U.S., with a highly decentralized system of public education, was able to improve achievement for all students, even those from low-income communities. Indeed, it is hard to imagine how the same country that was dubbed “a nation at risk” in 1983 and whose ability to educate its children was derided as “a threat to national security” in 2012 could become a nation to emulate.

Transforming education

What would need to happen over the next 20 years for that dream to become reality? The answer is that a range of factors can and will influence the progress of U.S. students over the next two decades. The Common Core State Standards have, for better or worse, heightened expectations. These standards are seen as the game changer — a reform effort that can accomplish what none other has been able to do.

But even if the implementation of the Common Core and the aligned assessments proceeds smoothly, it will likely be some time before any state sees the kind of dramatic, scaled-up impact needed to achieve outcomes even close to the aforementioned starry-eyed vision for 2033. Yet, even at this early stage of implementation, key indicators signal whether the standards will stand a chance of taking root across the country. So, for now, let’s focus on four telling nondata-driven indicators to watch and consider as the Common Core continues to be implemented.

#1. Leadership

Leadership, especially on the state level, is complicated and matters a lot. For example, only four of the 45 adopting states required legislative approval to adopt the Common Core. We know from experience that state legislatures are powerful entities with complicated and divergent political leanings. Having them on board with the adoption of the standards might have done a lot to avoid some of the legislative action we are now seeing.

While the ability of a state leader to articulate a clear and powerful message about a decision with such broad impact as adoption of the Common Core is hugely important, so is the ability of that leader to build a strong coalition of supporters across sectors and political parties. Business leaders, state boards, teacher unions, parent groups, and other important stakeholders should be in the game and in step with state leadership. That broad coalition of supporters will help hold a steady course when those suspicious of the Common Core begin to stir up trouble. If one actor or entity is seen as the initiative’s champion, then any change in fortune or election cycle is more likely to cause stakeholders to abandon ship. Strong leaders understand this and work to put a cohesive coalition in place before things get unruly.

#2. Communication

Leadership and the ability to communicate effectively go hand in hand. The best leaders understand that whatever goal they’re trying to reach will live or die by their ability to craft, articulate, and control the message. The education sector has seen this time and again with issues such as school closings, teacher layoffs, and testing. The Common Core will represent a shift for many schools and districts and those changes will annoy, infuriate, or terrify a subset of stakeholders. While education leaders may not be able to control the reactions of individuals or groups to the standards, they can control their own messaging by being abundantly clear and transparent about the standards and what they mean for students, teachers, administrative staff, parents, and the general public.

My advice to education leaders: Be clear, consistent, and transparent in your messaging. Know and understand what your local stakeholders are most concerned about and address those concerns.

Because so many states adopted the Common Core, the conversation about what the standards are and what they mean has garnered both local and national attention. Unfortunately, this creates even more of a communications challenge for local education leaders who now have to control their own message as well as respond to what stakeholders are hearing in the national media. My advice to education leaders is this: Be clear, consistent, and transparent in your messaging, and make sure the coalition you’ve built is supporting you, disciplined in the delivery of their messages, strategic in their outreach, and dogged in their effort to counter misinformation. And strive to keep your message local. In other words, don’t become part of the national scrum; know and understand what your own stakeholders are most concerned about and address those concerns directly.

#3. Resources

Most reform efforts require additional resources to cover costs, such as training for teachers and administrators, curriculum and instructional materials, and new technology. The Center on Education Policy, which I lead, has for the last three years been reporting on state implementation efforts around the Common Core, and every year states identify inadequate funding as a particular challenge in fully implementing the standards.

It is the soon-to-be released assessments, however, that will likely cause the most resource anxiety for states and districts implementing the standards. In recent months, both the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers and the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium have released pricing estimates for their Common Core-aligned products. These estimates have heightened concern about the resources needed for these tests and caused some states to drop out of their designated consortia. But the costs of the tests represent only one aspect of the resources needed to support this kind of comprehensive assessment. There are technology and training costs as well as the costs associated with the increased school time needed to take and grade the tests.

#4. Teachers, principals, and district leaders

Ignore the teachers, principals, and district leaders as the essential drivers of this reform effort, and the Common Core will likely never really make its mark on public education.

Teachers will have a huge effect on the implementation of any reform effort — and, in a great many schools across the country, teachers and school leaders have been and will continue to be asked to teach to the new standards without being given the training and support they need and deserve to accomplish that task. The top-down, “just do this” mentality that has undone so many past reform efforts will do exactly the same to the new standards if state and local leaders underestimate the role teachers and principals play in making this kind of major shift successful. Simply put, ignore the teachers, principals, and district leaders as the essential drivers of this reform effort, and the Common Core will likely never really make its mark on public education.

It would be wonderful if Nate Silver, the masterful election predictor of the New York Times, could create some kind of formula to determine the probability of the next 20 years bringing us to a place where all students get to reap the benefits of an equitable, high-performing school system. But predictions can be tricky even for the best of us. Better for now to apply lessons from past reform efforts while keeping a bright and determined eye on what dreams may bring.

Citation: Ferguson, M. (2013). Washington view: When the (education) revolution comes . . . . Phi Delta Kappan, 95 (2), 68-69.