Tucked in an Arizona Ready Council meeting in December 2012 was an interesting admission by Superintendent Huppenthal.
"Superintendent Huppenthal began the meeting with an update on Arizona graduation rates, which showed our gains ranking 3rd in the nation from 2006 to 2011 and our national rank improving from 46th to 27th overall. In that 5 year period, Arizona students went from graduation at a rate of just under 70% to graduating at a rate of just under 78%."
Arizona didn't even BEGIN to implement the first phase transition to Common Core until the 2011-2012 school year. In fact, teachers are still being "trained" how to do "close reads" of paragraphs and "informational texts."
So, if we were showing noticeable improvement PRIOR to Common Core, why are people like Huppenthal claiming we still need to go with the unproven, untested, untried Common Core Standards today?