Strategies for overseeing and implementing the common-core academic standards are laid out in a new report by the Washington-based Thomas B. Fordham Institute.
With most states having signed on to new common standards for teaching English and mathematics, and development under way on tests that align with them, the think tank’s authors asked more than a dozen education experts to turn to the question of what’s next for the nationwide common-standards movement.
Suggestions include: creating a governing board, by way of a compact with the states, to oversee standards and assessments; charging an existing group with updating the standards every five to 10 years while leaving other decisions to the states; and setting up an interim governing body to support state implementation of the standards that would possibly evolve into something more permanent. The authors favor a version of the last option.