California teachers and administrators agree that the Common Core State Standards are more rigorous than old standards, are more relevant to students’ lives, and will better prepare them for college and careers, but they are split on how well implementation has gone in the Golden State, says a new survey by WestEd, a San Francisco-based research and consulting nonprofit.
While more than 70 percent of district leaders deemed their progress as either “good” or “excellent,” teachers see room for improvement and have a wish list for moving forward.
One caveat: The study only cites survey results that are consistent with findings from either more in-depth interviews or other research. That’s because the survey’s response rate was too low for it to be statistically sound. Less than 30 percent of the 835 California superintendents who received the survey completed it. That figure dropped to 23 percent for the 7,000 teachers contacted, and around 20 percent of 7,375 principals.
