EdSource staff
March 29, 2015

EdSource is conducting a series of interviews featuring educators' experiences with the Common Core State Standards. Elk Grove Unified is  i of six districts that EdSource is following during implementation of the new standards. For more than information about the Common Core, bank check out our guide.

Chris Hoffman, superintendent of the Elk Grove Unified School District, is the first superintendent of the district to have received his K-12 education at that place. He talked with EdSource recently nigh preparing teachers and students for the Common Core standards in his district. Here are excerpts from the interview:

We've seen a lot of reforms come and go over the years. How are y'all dealing with the Common Core? Do y'all meet this as a major reform?

I recall it's a natural adjacent stride. We're not having conversations anymore well-nigh whether we should have standards. It took the states three to 4 years but to get people to believe we should have standards versus non having standards. This is more about the quality of the standards and what it is that we are asking kids to know and be able to do.

What has been the almost encouraging attribute of Common Core implementation in your district?

I'm encouraged by the deeper level of critical thinking and the skill set that nosotros're request kids to master. What's likewise very heady is the concept that the adults are learning at the same time. This is an opportunity for all our staff to rethink how they're going to deliver curriculum and how they're going to appoint kids to become a central office of the learning versus just being one-directional information coming from the teacher.

What has been the most challenging function of implementation and so far?

The near challenging parts have been time and the availability of the materials. This has come at us at a pretty quick pace and during the worst recession in U.S. history.

Some people are maxim Common Cadre isn't that unlike than previous standards. How new is the Mutual Core?

Information technology'due south a pretty big modify. One piece is the commonality of what the kids are expected to know, and to exist able to exercise, from kindergarten all the way through 12thursday grade. The continuity among this set of standards is significantly meliorate developed and organized than it was previously.

Are you finding textbook materials that are aligned with Common Cadre?

We have K-eight Mutual Core math materials in front of kids. Nosotros are using Go Math for those grades and our schoolhouse board has approved moving forwards with an integrated math program in high school. We're moving abroad from the traditional algebra, geometry and algebra II. Next year we'll be rolling out Integrated Math I, the math approach of Houghton Mifflin for grades nine-12. 40-8 teachers were involved in the pilot for the high school math materials.

Are your students prepared for the Smarter Balanced tests?

Our kids generally practise well on a wide variety of metrics, and I don't meet the Common Core testing being dramatically unlike. I await the use of applied science will be part of the challenge for teachers and students and they'll accept to get used to how that works.

Are you seeing a lot more project-based learning equally a consequence of Mutual Cadre?

I don't know if nosotros're seeing a huge increment. We did a lot of that already. We have an extensive array of career academies throughout our district so the concept of integrated curriculum and outcome-based education isn't new.

How prepared are your teachers to teach Common Core or to utilise the standards in their education?

I retrieve we're in pretty good shape, relative to the amount of work that'due south put in front end of united states of america. This is a process, and this is going to accept some other 3 to 5 years to be in a grade where we are fully implementing Common Core in every classroom, and where every teacher is an skilful in that content. But we however have a lot of work to practice in adopting curriculum.

Is Mutual Cadre overshadowing other major reforms, such equally the Local Control Funding Formula?

Both of those things are going on simultaneously. It'southward a claiming merely it's part of what motivates me in getting up every morning. This is i of the few opportunities I'm going to get to be at the ground level of restructuring the financial side and how we apply resource, via the Local Control Funding Formula, as well as what we're doing with curricula. It would be pretty exciting if you were able to do ane of those two things in your career. But we're going to do both at the same time.

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