Get It Right

Jessica Johnson, principal of Dodgeland Elementary School in Juneau, WI and a NAESP National Distinguished Principal, shares her experience using technology to guide Common Core implementation. 

Vicki Phillips, Director of Education, College Ready at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, discusses the importance of college- and career-ready standards and their thoughtful implementation.

In this episode, National PTA President Otha Thornton shares efforts undertaken at the local, state and national levels to ensure parents have an understanding of the Common Core— what it is, how it came about and how it will help children graduate college and career ready.

Listen to Dr. C.J. Huff, Superintendent of Joplin, Missouri Schools, share the importance of leveraging existing partnerships and school staff to engage in conversations across the community to demystify the Common Core. 

Tanya Golden, a sixth grade teacher at Carver Academy in California’s ABC Unified School District tells us how her district has used Teacher Leaders to develop Common Core-aligned units of study and help school staff with the implementation process of these new units.

Richard Saldana, Social Studies Department Chair at Artesia High School in California’s ABC School District explains how the district has unified teachers, administrators, school board leaders and parents in support of college and career-ready standards. 

Kevin Dalton, President of the Toledo Federation of Teachers, explains how TFT worked in partnership with Toledo Public Schools to develop curriculum alignment maps and teacher-led professional development to implement college and career ready standards.  He is joined by Amy Whaley, a teacher at Beverly Elementary School in Toledo, Ohio. Ms. Whaley shares how the standards provide a framework that helps facilitate deeper learning among her students.

Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond, Professor of Education at Stanford University, Faculty Director of the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education and Chair of the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing discusses the benefits of college and career ready standards for improving conditions for both teacher and student learning. Darling-Hammond also speaks to the need for performance assessments that better measure student achievement and growth.

Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond, Professor of Education at Stanford University, Faculty Director of the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education and Chair of the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing discusses the benefits of college and career ready standards for improving conditions for both teacher and student learning. Darling-Hammond also speaks to the need for performance assessments that better measure student achievement and growth.

Dr. Michael Kirst, chairman of the California State Board of Education, focuses on the importance of implementation that has integrated all of California’s ongoing instructional efforts, as well as a renewed focus on postsecondary opportunities for children.

Eric Luedtke, a middle school social studies teacher and an elected member of the Maryland House of Delegates, discusses the role of educators in the implementation process and the need to focus on student learning.

Dr. Terry Holliday, Kentucky’s state commissioner of education, shares the power of engaging educators early and throughout the implementation process and the role Kentucky teachers played in unpacking the standards and building great new state assessments.

Dayna Richardson, chair of the Kansas Learning First Alliance, talks about her organization’s role in communicating the need for new standards, deliberately taking implementation one step at a time and the value of multiple measures of success.

Dr. Terri Hodges, the president of the Delaware PTA, discusses the importance of proper planning, a collaborative process and the need for the separation of the standards and the tests to ensure progress. In Delaware, parents played a key role in implementation, a process that has taken more than three years.