EdSource staff
March 26, 2015

EdSource is conducting a series of interviews featuring educators' experiences with the Common Cadre State Standards. Garden Grove Unified is one of six districts that EdSource is following during implementation of the new standards. For more data well-nigh the Common Cadre, check out our guide.

Gabriela Mafi, superintendent of the Garden Grove Unified Schoolhouse Commune, is a Latina raised in urban Los Angeles. She is a start-generation college graduate who received her master's and doctoral degrees in Urban Educational Leadership from the University of Southern California. She has been superintendent in Garden Grove, in northern Orange Canton, since the summer of 2013, afterwards a career that included serving as a K-12 teacher, an adjunct college professor, and an banana superintendent of secondary education.

The post-obit are edited excerpts from an EdSource interview with Mafi about the changes in her district under the Common Core.

What stands out to you as the virtually specific modify you've seen for students under the new Mutual Cadre State Standards?

There'southward a very thoughtful vertical pattern which was non present in whatsoever of the previous iterations of standards. With the previous standards, if you had a 2nd-grade teacher and a 7th-grade teacher, their terminology was completely different; it was like a Tower of Babel of sorts in that there was picayune continuity across grade levels and one didn't necessarily see how these standards built upon each other from year to twelvemonth.  Now, we have a clearer pathway for student learning from kindergarten through 12th grade.

In terms of the content of the standards themselves, there's a much greater focus on assay and on expository reading and writing across content areas that was non equally prevalent in previous standards. This is especially important as the majority of reading in college and careers is non-fiction.

When it comes to the assessments, what nosotros saw in the field tests is a much higher level of rigor. In that location are so many more elements at present than just filling in a bubble with your pencil. Students now have to explain their thinking on a mathematical problem or a response to a reading passage. The questions are more open-ended and require greater critical thinking.

What do you lot see equally the biggest challenge presented by the new standards?

Nosotros are concerned about the lack of textbooks and materials aligned to the new standards. We've just now finished piloting the state-approved math program to launch in the autumn. Even so, the English Arts materials aren't available still; the state is approval them one-time this coming fall. In the interim, we've been using materials we adopted back in 2002 and 2003, which aren't aligned with the new standards.

Are you seeing any opposition to Mutual Core?

There is opposition, but we haven't experienced information technology much with parents of our students. At that place are some community groups in the county, still, many of whom have called to home-school their children, and who hold very potent beliefs confronting the Common Core which often manifest in hyperbole about practices that bear no relationship to the effective instruction seen in Garden Grove. Often just that phrase, "Common Core," is and then charged. Many do not realize that the California Department of Education regularly updates academic standards for all schools in the state, and these standards have been and will continue to be updated periodically.

We don't call the new state standards "Common Core" considering they are truly the latest iteration of the California standards. As we've interacted with both parents and community members during some parent nights and at board meetings and other events, we've said, "You know, the standards are adult at the state level. That'southward not something that nosotros have command over, and while we are required to teach the country standards, nosotros're continuing to focus on the same good instruction we have always provided our children, and you're going to run into those same positive results standing even as the standards continue to change over the years."

How practice your teachers feel nearly the new standards?

In general, we've had a very positive reception from our teachers, staff, and students. They are all embracing the modify. Our district has worked difficult to ensure instruction resource, including instructional technology and pupil assessments, are available so that teachers may implement the new standards as seamlessly as possible.

At the same fourth dimension, a great deal of change at in one case can be difficult, and ane of the challenges of the new standards, although it's not insurmountable, is that both math and ELA standards have changed at in one case. Typically in the past, the math standards would change, and then a few years later the English arts standards would change. In this way, y'all wouldn't have all the textbooks needing to exist updated at the same time. Add to that, at the same time, an entirely new cess (that's taken, for the first time, on computers). So what'southward been a claiming for our folks is that even as they're enthusiastic and they're extremely professional and conscientious, it can be stressful to experience that much alter, and exist dealing with information technology all even as you're teaching students every day. So nosotros recognize our teachers may feel overwhelmed past all of this change. It'due south our job to be the support for them, to help them to feel skillful well-nigh what they're doing and let them know that nosotros are all learning together and no one expects perfection.

The new standards really have caused people to want to collaborate more, to want to discuss and share more. So I think in that location's been a greater emphasis on that, fifty-fifty as we've e'er had a very collaborative civilisation in our district. Our teachers are enthusiastic about collaborating. They similar working together, and we accept a very robust professional person development program that emphasizes collaboration. We take various meetings, networks, and online resources which allow teachers to share lessons. In each of our schools, teachers have collaboration time built into the day.

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