Year 3 of Implementing the Common Core State Standards: Professional Development for Teachers and Principals

Timely, ongoing, and effective professional development for teachers and principals will be critical to the successful implementation of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). These voluntary state-developed standards in mathematics and English language arts (ELA) outline the knowledge and skills that students in grades kindergarten through 12 are expected to learn to be prepared for college and careers. As of July 2013, the CCSS have been adopted in math and ELA by 45 states and the District of Columbia and by one additional state in ELA only. If teachers and principals are going to be prepared to help their students master the Common Core and pass the aligned assessments that will be ready in school year 2014-15, they will need professional development on various issues related to the standards. To date, little is known about important aspects of professional development related to the CCSS, including which entities are responsible for providing it, what kinds of professional development are being offered, how many teachers and principals have received training to date, and what challenges states are confronting as they try to meet this need. To help answer these questions, the Center on Education Policy (CEP) at The George Washington University included several questions specifically related to professional development within a broader survey about CCSS implementation. The survey was administered to state deputy superintendents or their designees from February through May of 2013. Forty states responded to this survey, including 39 that had adopted the CCSS in both ELA and math and 1 that had adopted the standards in ELA only. Thus, the survey findings represent the views of a majority of the states that had adopted the standards at the time of the survey. The responses of specific states have been kept confidential to encourage frank answers. This report, the third in a series of CEP reports based on the 2013 survey, describes states' responses to the questions about professional development. A section on study methods is appended.