Educators across California are implementing the new state standards. How are things progressing? The California State Board of Education partnered with WestEd to coordinate a statewide survey of California teachers, principals, and district leaders to find out.

Educators surveyed between September and December 2015 provided their perspectives on current implementation of the state’s English language arts and mathematics standards.

WestEd assembled and presented the survey findings alongside the lessons the agency has learned across its other research and technical assistance initiatives underway on standards implementation.

This report describes the findings that emerged across these various initiatives and other recent relevant research, and provides a broad perspective on implementation progress in the state’s schools and districts.

Key Findings

  • Practitioners have goodwill toward the standards
  • Districts are implementing standards in different ways and on different timelines
  • School leaders need to develop new knowledge and capacity about curriculum, instruction, and assessment
  • Educators are seeking more structured time to learn and implement standards-based practices
  • Educators are seeking quality standards-aligned instructional materials (particularly in English language arts) as well as interim/diagnostic assessments
  • Teachers are relying on peer-developed materials