Project Activities
C-SAIL conducted both research and national leadership activities. Its research agenda included four studies: an implementation study, a longitudinal outcomes study, a measurement study, and an intervention study. Combined, these studies focused on cataloguing and understanding state and district efforts to implement CCR standards, assessing the effects of states’ adoption of more rigorous standards on student outcomes, and testing an intervention that provided guidance to teachers on aligning their instruction to standards. C-SAIL also conducted national leadership and dissemination activities with a focus on providing clear, actionable information to policymakers, practitioners, researchers, and the public.
Focused program of research
Study 1: College- and Career-Ready Standards Implementation
The implementation study sought to understand state, district, and school efforts to implement CCR standards since the publication of the Common Core State Standards and other CCR standards. The Implementation study provided a detailed picture of how states and districts are supporting implementation of the standards, how educators are interpreting the standards and changing their practice in response to them, and how these changes are related to measures of student learning.
Design: The researchers collected data from 70 districts across 5 states: California, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Ohio, and Texas. Within each district, they selected two elementary and two high schools, and within each school, two math and two ELA teachers, as well as a teacher of English learning students and a teacher of students with disabilities in the high schools. C-SAIL conducted interviews with state and district administrators, reviewed state and district implementation documents, and surveyed district officers, principals, and teachers. Using these qualitative and quantitative data along with annual student assessment data, the researchers determined whether differences in states’ policy systems are related to trends in implementation and student achievement and whether some standards are easier to implement effectively than others.
C-SAIL used supplemental funding from IES to conduct one “deep dive” case study in each of our four partner states, plus the School District of Philadelphia (SDP). The goal of the deep dives was to better understand how standards were being implemented, mediating and moderating influences, and interactions among different respondents, policies, and other key features of the policy system. Specifically, this ‘deep dive’ allowed the Center to learn about standards interpretations, the features and quality of supports and guidance for implementing standards, and schools’ and teachers’ changing practices in response to the standards. This qualitative inquiry also allowed researchers to investigate innovative approaches to standards implementation.
Key Outcomes:
- More local control of standards implementation was a challenge for some districts, while others achieved what the grantee termed “flexible specificity” by creating instructional strategies that successfully balanced flexibility (local and classroom control) with guidance (clear instructions about what and how to teach) (Stornaiuolo, Polikoff & Desimone, 2023).
- Teachers and administrators were generally supportive of the standards and thought they were appropriate for their students; a notable exception were special education teachers, who were more likely to see the content standards as inappropriate for the students they served, reflecting a persistent tension between standardization and individualization (Edgerton & Desimone, 2019; Edgerton, Fuchs & Fuchs, 2020).
- The relationship between teachers’ perceptions of the standards and standards-aligned instruction shifted over time—in 2016, teachers’ buy-in was associated with more standards-aligned instruction; in 2019, teachers’ perceptions of specificity of policy documents and guidance was associated with more standards-aligned instruction (Comstock, Edgerton, & Desimone, 2022).
- State guidance on standards implementation varied. Texas had a robust state-level infrastructure for guidance and support in Texas, while Ohio had fewer state-developed resources in Ohio in favor of local control. Still, even with state infrastructure in Texas, aspects of teachers’ local context—in particular, lack of infrastructure for ongoing, embedded professional learning—limited teachers’ ability to engage in state-developed guidance (Comstock, Edgerton, & Desimone, 2022).
- Standards implementation efforts for ELs have become more centralized, with states and national consortia taking on more active roles in developing identification and reclassification guidelines and procedures local districts are expected to adhere to. The states, in partnership with these national organizations, seem to be providing much more specificity and consistency (aligning supportive materials and PD with standards and assessments) in implementation of standards for ELs. They do this through authority mechanisms that give the standards legitimacy and generate buy-in (e.g., rules, historical practice), an approach we label “authoritative specificity” (Flores, Saldívar Garcia, & Edgerton, 2023).
Study 2: Longitudinal Outcomes
The longitudinal outcomes study leveraged the natural variation in the rigor of states’ standards prior to the introduction of CCR standards to assess the effects of states’ adoption of more rigorous standards on student outcomes. This study aimed to determine whether states’ adoption of more rigorous standards as part of the latest wave of standards-based reform led to increases in the achievement test scores and high school graduation rate for the overall student population and for student subgroups including students with disabilities and English Learners. The research team also explored whether the effects of states’ adoption of more rigorous standards was moderated by the specificity, consistency, authority, power, and stability of states’ implementation of CCR standards.
Design: The researchers used a comparative interrupted time series (CITS) design to explore the impact of more rigorous standards on key student outcomes, using the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test scores in grades 4 and 8 and high school graduation rates compiled by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). The team measured policy attributes by constructing a 50-state database that describes each state's policies along each of the five policy dimensions.
Key Outcomes:
- States’ adoption of more rigorous standards that was at the center of the latest wave of standards-based reform did not lead to improved student achievement during the first 7 years after the adoption of the standards (Song et al., 2022).
- The effects of states’ adoption of more rigorous standards varied across NAEP subscales and student subgroups, with most of the effects in the negative direction and non-significant. The negative effects on reading subscales for Grade 4, however, did reach statistical significance (Song et al., 2022).
Study 3: Measurement
The measurement study generated a set of instruments that the project team used to analyze the academic content and cognitive demand of teachers' instruction and their classroom assessments (i.e., quizzes or exams), as well as curriculum materials. The primary objective of the measurement instruments was to assess alignment of instruction and materials to college- and career-ready standards. The work resulted in revisions to the Surveys of Enacted Curriculum (SEC) framework and generated: (1) a revised SEC rubric for rating standards, assessments, and curriculum materials; (2) revised weekly and semester-long teacher surveys; and (3) a new observation instrument to measure the quality of teachers' instruction in terms of its alignment with college- and career-ready standards. The Center used these products in its implementation and intervention studies and has made these instruments available to other researchers seeking to assess alignment of instruction and curriculum materials (Polikoff et al., 2020).
Key Outcomes:
- Created a revised Surveys of Enacted Curriculum in mathematics and ELA to measure teachers’ coverage of CCR standards (Polikoff et al., 2020).
- Developed a general process for researchers to use to revise or update the Surveys of Enacted Curriculum as needed for individual studies (Polikoff et al., 2020).
- Provided validity evidence for the revised Surveys of Enacted Curriculum; demonstrated areas of relative strength and weakness in terms of the validity of teacher self-reports of content coverage (Polikoff et al., 2020).
Study 4: The FAST Intervention Evaluation
This study evaluated the impact of the Feedback on Alignment and Support for Teachers (FAST) program, which provided instructional guidance to teachers. FAST used instructional coaches to help teachers address both the topic and cognitive demand requirements within college- and career-ready standards for math or ELA. The FAST program included four key components: (1) grade-level teacher team meetings to discuss aligning instruction to the standards; (2) one-on-one coaching sessions between trained coaches and teachers; (3) tracking of instructional practices through teachers’ self-reported logs and self-selected videotapes of classroom instruction; and (4) a resource base with videos and model lesson plans to support standards-aligned instruction.
Design: To test the FAST program, the researchers conducted a randomized controlled trial (RCT) involving 56 elementary schools located in 5 districts across 3 states. They chose the school as the unit of assignment because the FAST program encourages collaboration among teachers, and they randomly assigned schools separately within each district and in blocks within the three larger districts. The main outcomes were a measure of the alignment of teachers’ instruction to state standards and students' scores on states' end-of-year state assessments (in math and ELA). Researchers employed multi-level models consistent with the sampling strategy to estimate the impact of the FAST program on teacher and student outcomes.
Key Outcomes:
- Over the course of the two-year FAST program, teachers participated in roughly half of the intended FAST activities (Smith, et al., 2023).
- The program had a positive impact on the alignment of teachers’ instruction with standards for both math and ELA teachers (effect sizes = 0.70 and 0.40, respectively), although the impact was statistically significant only for math teachers (Smith, et al., 2023).
- The program’s impact on student achievement, however, was in the negative direction for both fourth-grade mathematics and fifth-grade ELA (effect sizes = -0.07 and -0.10, respectively), although the impact on achievement was statistically significant only for ELA (Smith, et al., 2023).
National leadership and outreach activities
C-SAIL hosted panels, webinars, and other interactive activities including hosting seminars and panels timed at the beginning or end of national conferences. These activities were designed to foster conversations where states and districts shared implementation successes and failures, and devised plans for improving implementation. C-SAIL actively shared information with national organizations by maintained a state-of-the-art website containing research papers, policy briefs, and standards-aligned practices, to serve a wide audience including practitioners and policymakers at all levels of the education system. By partnering with other researchers, C-SAIL researchers developed practitioner-facing publications to share insights with leaders and teachers (e.g., Allensworth, Desimone & Mariano, 2023; Woulpin, Desimone & Stornaiuolo, 2023).
Key outcomes
C-SAIL’s research ultimately indicated that the standards-based reforms as enacted over the course of the project did not lead to the intended overall improvement in students’ academic outcomes. Researchers did not find a statistically significant relationship between enactment of state college- and career-ready standards and students’ test scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress except for grade 4 reading, for which a significant negative relationship was found (Song et al., 2022). However, through its qualitative research, C-SAIL researchers found that educators were supportive of the standards and thought they were appropriate for most students (Edgerton & Desimone, 2019). A notable exception was special education teachers, who were more likely to see the content standards as inappropriate for the students they served, reflecting a persistent tension between standardization and individualization (Edgerton, Fuchs & Fuchs, 2020).
People and institutions involved
IES program contact(s)
Project contributors
Products and publications
Project website:
Publications:
ERIC Citations: Find available citations in ERIC for this award here.
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Journal Articles
Lentz, A., Desimone, L.M., Stornaiuolo, A., Pak, K., Flores, N., Nichols, P., Polikoff, M., & Porter, A. (accepted). Lessons Learned from Districts: Increasing teacher buy-in to improve policy implementation. Phi Delta Kappan.
Allensworth, E., Desimone, L., & Marianno, L. (2023). Local success in the standards era. Phi Delta Kappan, 105(1), 18-23.
Woulfin, S.L., Desimone, L., & Stornaiuolo. (2023). Designing Instructional Coaching: Suggestions for Supporting Teachers’ Professional Learning for the 21st Century. Journal of Scholarship and Practice, 20(3), 7-17.
Stornaiuolo, A., Desimone, L., & Polikoff, M. (2023). “The good struggle” of flexible specificity: Districts balancing specific guidance with autonomy to support standards-based instruction. American Education Research Journal, 60(3), 521–561. https://doi.org/10.3102/00028312231161037
Flores, N., Saldívar Garcia, E., & Edgerton, A. (2023). Authority over power in English learner accountability policies: Maintaining a national role within a context of local control. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 31(46). https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.31.6479
Comstock, M., Edgerton, A. K., & Desimone, L. M. (2022). Connecting Policy to Practice: How State and Local Policy Environments Relate to Teachers’ Instruction. Teachers College Record, 124(11), 82-116. https://doi.org/10.1177/01614681221143548
Nichols, P., Desimone, L., & Edgerton, A. (2021). “Smart power” in standards implementation after No Child Left Behind. American Journal of Education, 128(1), 147-169. https://doi.org/10.1086/716463
Atchison, D., Garet, M. S., Smith, T. M., & Song, M. (2022). The validity of measures of instructional alignment with state standards based on Surveys of Enacted Curriculum. AERA Open, 8(1), 1–17. doi.org/10.1177/23328584221098761
Edgerton, A.K., Desimone, L.M., Harkin, J. (accepted). Appropriate and useful: Principal attitudes towards K-12 standards and policies. Teachers College Record.
Flores, N. & Lewis, M. (2022). ‘False positives’, ‘re-entry programs’ and ‘long term English learners’: Undoing dichotomous frames in US language education policy. Equity & Excellence in Education. 55(3), 257-269. https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2022.2047408
Flores, N., Saldívar García, E. & Edgerton, A. (2023). Authority over power in English learner accountability policies. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 31(46). https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.31.6479
Pak, K., McLaughlin, J., Saldivar Zimmerman, E., & Desimone, L.M. (2021). “Boots on the ground”: The authority-power dynamic of regional service centers in the standards era. Journal of Educational Policy, 29, 31. EJ1322296
Pak, K., Polikoff, M.S., Desimone, L. M., & Garcia Saldivar, E. (2020). The adaptive challenges of curriculum implementation. AERA Open, 6(2). EJ1258084
Pak, K., Desimone, L. M., & Parsons, A. (2020). An integrative approach to professional development to support college-and career-readiness standards. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 28(111). https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.28.4970 EJ1265332
Polikoff, M. S., Gasparian, H., Korn, S., Gamboa, M., Porter, A. C., Smith, T., & Garet, M. S. (2020). Flexibly using the Surveys of Enacted Curriculum to study alignment. Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice, 39(2), 38-47. EJ1256027
Edgerton, A. K., Fuchs, D., & Fuchs, L. (2020). New standards and old divides: Policy attitudes about college- and career-ready standards for students with disabilities. Teachers College Record, 122(1). EJ1265683
Edgerton, A. K. (2019). The essence of ESSA: More control at the district level? Phi Delta Kappan, 101(2), 14-17. EJ1229541
Desimone, L. M., Stornaiuolo, A., Flores, N., Pak, K., Edgerton, A. K., Nichols, T. P., Plummer, E., & Porter, A. (2019). Successes and challenges of the “new” college- and career-ready standards: Seven implementation trends. Educational Researcher, 48(3), 167-178. EJ1212759
Edgerton, A. K. (2019). Learning From Standards Deviations: Three Dimensions for Building Education Policies That Last. American Educational Research Journal. Advanced online publication. doi:10.3102/0002831219876566. ED598544
Edgerton, A. K., & Desimone L. M. (2019). Mind the Gaps: Differences in How Teachers, Principals, and Districts Experience College- and Career-Readiness Policies. American Journal of Education 125(4). EJ1223296
Pak, K., & Desimone, L. (2019). How Do States Implement College- and Career-Readiness Standards? A Distributed Leadership Analysis of Standards-Based Reform. Educational Administrative Quarterly, 55(3), 447-476. EJ1220930
Polikoff, M. S., Gasparian, H., Korn, S., Gamboa, M., Porter, A. C., Smith, T., & Garet, M. S. (2019). Flexibly using the Surveys of Enacted Curriculum to study alignment. Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice. Advance online publication. doi:10.1111/emip.12292.
Edgerton, A. K., & Desimone, L. M. (2018). Teacher implementation of college- and career-readiness standards: Links among policy, instruction, challenges, and resources. AERA Open, 4(5), 1-22. EJ1210488
Desimone, L.M., & Pak, K. (2017). Instructional coaching as high-quality professional development. Theory Into Practice, 56(1), 3-12. EJ1129817
Smith, T. M., Garet, M. S., Song, M., Atkinson, D., & Porter, A. (2023) The impact of a virtual coaching program to improve instructional alignment to state standards. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 17(1), 19-42. DOI: 10.1080/19345747.2022.2150729
Song, M., Garet, M., Yang, R., & Atchison, D. (2022). Did states’ adoption of more rigorous standards lead to improved student achievement? Evidence from a comparative interrupted time series study of standards-based reform. American Educational Research Journal, 59(3), 610–647.
Supplemental information
Co-Principal Investigators: Desimone, L. M., Garet, M., Polikoff, M. S., and Song, M.
Other Key Personnel: Flores, N. L., Fuchs, D. H., Fuchs, L. S., Smith, T., and Stornaiuolo, A.
Participating Academic/Research Partners: University of Pennsylvania; American Institutes of Research (AIR); University of Southern California, Vanderbilt University.
State/District Partners; California Department of Education; Kentucky Department of Education; Massachusetts Departments of Elementary and Secondary Education; Ohio Department of Education; The School District of Philadelphia; Texas Education Agency.
Questions about this project?
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