Educators learn Common Core on the fly

As recently as the start of the last school year, few New Yorkers knew the Common Core from the common cold.

Things have changed.

New York's adoption of the Common Core learning standards and related initiatives has turned the staid world of public education upside down. The Journal News' Education Team checked in with a diverse group of eight districts — Chappaqua, Elmsford, East Ramapo,Lakeland, Mahopac, Scarsdale, South Orangetown and Yonkers — to see how they are coping. You can find their stories at commoncore.lohud.com.

What did they tell us? To get a handle on what's happening, you must separate the Common Core standards — a series of grade-by-grade learning goals — from New York's flawed implementation. Many educators would give failing grades to the high-speed rollout of the standards, new tests, a new teacher-evaluation system and more. They shake their heads over the state's unwillingness to consider the financial costs of reform during the tax-cap era or the strong track records of many suburban districts.

At the same time, educators who are living each day with the Common Core told us the standards are OK — maybe better than OK. We found an emerging consensus that the Common Core may one day accomplish its goal of setting strong, minimum standards for what a high school graduate should know.

If only New York can get through the next few years.