EdSource staff
April 12, 2015

EdSource is conducting a series of interviews featuring educators' experiences with the Mutual Core State Standards. Fresno Unified is one of 6 districts that EdSource is following during implementation of the new standards. For more than information about the Common Core, check out our guide.

Fresno Unified School District Superintendent Michael Hanson has served as superintendent for the district since 2005. Prior to that he served for four years as associate superintendent of educational services for the Elk Grove Unified School Commune, and iv years as main of Laguna Creek High School. He holds a bachelor'south degree in economics from UCLA, a master's caste in pedagogy from Harvard University, with a specialization in teaching and curriculum and a certificate of advanced study in Educational Administration from Syracuse University.

Is Mutual Core a meaning departure from what was expected of teachers before?

It is a significant deviation in terms of the instructional shifts, at that place's no dubiety. And I besides think it does call for a deeper level of understanding of cadre content. And that's a identify that we're going to probably have to grapple with as a state. I call up that what is required in California for an undergraduate degree leading to a credential, especially in the elementary partitioning, is not consummate enough to have yous prepared to teach to the Mutual Core from  just a purely content level. For case, what is required now in 5th and vith grade in mathematics are some pretty high-level, circuitous algebraic concepts. And you can't teach that with just a couple of college math courses and then a methods grade on the way to certification.

The district put in our contract that nosotros signed final year that we were non going to accept combination classes in grades 5 and 6. And that was a nod from us, saying we know the conditions are going to be hard for vth and half-dozenth grade teachers trying to teach math, and the last thing we're going to do is give any teacher a five-half-dozen combo to teach two years worth of very difficult content. So I practice think information technology's going to challenge people, and I think it's going to require unlike pedagogy, merely it's also going to require some study on content equally well.

What is near encouraging about implementing the Common Cadre thus far and what's the most challenging?

The most encouraging is we've got a clear, consistent understanding of what students are expected to learn, and nosotros've done a pretty expert communication with our teachers and parents about what they need to do to aid them. What's a claiming is actually another benefit. At the same time that nosotros've been implementing, nosotros have moved our commune pretty aggressively to having what we call accountable communities. It's our version of professional learning communities. And nosotros built that in in every school, every class level, every department over a three-yr period. So at present we're in year iv, we take 700 lead teachers that nosotros've trained. We have congenital in time for collaboration, and a space for teachers to go larn and grow together every bit they're implementing Common Core. It'due south a way to help them to feel equally competent and as effective as they did in the previous arena.

Some superintendents said they kind of feel like they're in the dark most what to expect with the upcoming end of the year Smarter Balanced assessments.

I retrieve that's very accurate. I would be very direct on the point and say the state absolutely missed the opportunity by not giving us reports from concluding twelvemonth'south pilot. It would have been useful if they gave u.s. feedback on where we are, what happened, and how nosotros did, and what is the cycle of reporting going to await like. And then they finally released the (interim assessments), only at present we're backed upwardly so shut to the actual administration of the test. The best we can do now is offer information technology as an option. We have minimal usage. I don't blame teachers. They look at this and they go, "I already have a testing cycle come up. I don't want to spend whatever more than time on this when there's really non annihilation I tin can do with the results betwixt now and the time I'm gonna requite the test anyway, and then let'southward just keep doing what I'one thousand doing until we give the exam."

Is there a particular concern for how English learners volition do on the assessments, since predictions are that the results might come back pretty dismal, specially for English language learners?

I retrieve all of those issues around concerns are well founded, and that's a place where I exercise not think we idea this through as completely as we probably should have as a state. We know that these more rigorous assessments are going to show that our kids are non where they were on the last round of assessments on the California Standards Tests.

We've heard from teachers around the state, including from some in Fresno, that there's tension around whether teacher preparation is being commune driven or teacher driven. Where's the balance?

We've spent an awful lot of fourth dimension on how nosotros manage our student time, merely we realize we had not been equally dutiful on our staff time. And so we built out what nosotros're calling our Professional Learning Chief Schedule, where we're trying to get everything mapped out electronically, where nosotros tin show what's being offered by whom, to whom, when, and for what purpose, and all the rest of that. And what we found was what we knew to be true: we have too much – we have overlap, nosotros take some things that are non coordinated well. And, candidly, we have more professional evolution offered than teachers could maybe squeeze (into their schedules).

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