National Governors Association Center for Best Practices

This grant supports the work of the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, which develops innovative solutions to today’s most pressing public policy challenges. The center is the only research and development organization that directly serves the nation’s governors.

The NGA is the membership association of the nation's governors. Its Center for Best Practices will develop an Issue Brief on the Common Core educational standards and a Toolkit to help governors and other state policymakers plan for policies and practices to support the standards; the toolkit will be used as the centerpiece for a series of planned policy forums for state leadership teams in 2011. Historically, policymakers have significantly underestimated the implementation challenges that emerge after enactment of complex policies and -- immediately following an historic change in the political landscape following the 2010 mid-term elections -- incoming leaders will need both orientation and tools to help ensure continuity of the standards movement and to promote its effective implementation. The Common Core standards are a central component of the Education Program's "Deeper Learning" reform agenda.

This grant would create a framework to guide state policymakers and postsecondary leaders in implementing and cultivating support for deeper learning and the Common Core standards. The project also will increase higher education’s involvement in areas such as assessment of students’ readiness for credit-bearing courses and increasing teachers’ capacity to teach the standards.