Common Challenges to Implementing College- and Career-Readiness Standards

With the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015, federal funds were mobilized for state and local use to help improve educational opportunities for all students, including disadvantaged and high-need learners. Yet with this effort to decentralize federal authority came a notable amount of variation in how teachers experience standards-based policy firsthand. While many in the field grapple with the revisions that come with a growing decentralization of standards-based reform, teacher learning and understanding of college- and career-readiness (CCR) standards and revisions is critical to successful implementation. Even when fully supported and focused on implementing standards in the classroom, teachers often face challenging work conditions that stymie their best efforts to implement standards-based reform.