Opening the Common Core: How to Bring ALL Students to College and Career Readiness
By Carol Corbett Burris, Delia T. Garrity

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This book provides practical strategies and standards-based model lessons proven to help close achievement gaps and increase the number of students who complete four-year college programs.

Review
"This book is perfectly timed for the release and implementation of the Common Core State Standards. This is exactly what a school needs to use the implementation of the CCSS as an opportunity to change its moral imperative to include a mission to prepare all students for post-secondary education." (Michael Horton, AVID Administrator )

“The authors equip school and district leaders with a practical, research-based approach to providing an engaging, equitable learning experience for all students.”

(Jeff Ronneberg, Superintendent )

“Burris and Garrity use a combination of academic acceleration, equity results, critical thinking, and teacher support to paint a concrete picture of what it takes to get results. They provide both the framework and specifics to create a rich curriculum and instructional strategies that engage all students. The message of combining the CCSS with the recognition and enlistment of teacher talent and ideas is infectious. Engaging and persuasively written.” (Henry M. Levin, Founder of the Accelerated Schools Project )

“The authors helped move their district toward national recognition for outstanding teaching and learning founded upon the development of teachers as knowledgeable, trusted professionals. Their book gives teachers and school leaders practical, useful tools grounded in experience and research-tools that help provide all students with excellent and challenging learning experiences that are deep, meaningful, preparatory and not driven by testing.” (Kevin G. Welner, Director, National Education Policy Center )

“At a time when testing pressures are narrowing the curriculum in too many schools, Burris and Garrity show readers how students can be led to college readiness through sound instructional practices that recognize research and honor good teaching. This book provides teachers and school leaders with clear examples of strategies and lessons that recognize that equitable access to rich learning experiences for all students is critical as we strive for excellence.” (Linda Darling-Hammond, Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education and Founding Director )

About the Author 

Carol Corbett Burris has served as principal of South Side High School in New York's Rockville Centre School District since 2000. Prior to becoming a principal, she was a teacher at both the middle and high school level. She received her doctorate from Teachers College, Columbia University, and her dissertation, which studied her district’s detracking reform in math, received the 2003 National Association of Secondary Schools’ Principals Middle Level Dissertation of the Year Award. In 2010, she was named The New York State Outstanding Educator by School Administrators Association of New York State.

She is the co-author, with Delia Garrity, of Detracking for Excellence and Equity. Articles that she has authored or co-authored have appeared in Educational Leadership, The Kappan, the American Educational Research Journal, The Teachers College Record, Theory into Practice, The School Administrator, the American School Board Journal and EdWeek. A chapter on closing the achievement gap, which she co-authored with Kevin Welner, appeared in Lessons in Integration: Realizing the Promise of Racial Diversity in America's Schools, a volume edited by the Harvard Civil Rights Project.  

Delia T. Garrity was a public school educator for 37 years, serving as a math teacher, teacher of the gifted, mathematics department chairperson, curriculum supervisor, assistant principal, and assistant superintendent. During her tenure as assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction in Rockville Centre School District, New York, she provided the leadership in opening academic doors to all students and designed a comprehensive professional learning model for teachers and administrators. As assistant principal of South Side Middle School in Rockville Centre, Delia facilitated the school's transformation from a tracked system to one that offers an honors curriculum in heterogeneous classes for all students. She received the New York State Middle School Assistant Principal of the Year Award in 1996. She has taught graduate courses on mathematics education at Long Island University and is a guest lecturer at Teachers College, Columbia University. She is a national educational consultant and presenter who works with educators to create equitable heterogeneous classrooms where each student, including special education students, English language learners and gifted students; receives the same high quality, rich education. She coauthored Detracking for Excellence and Equity, with Carol C. Burris and authored or coauthored articles in American School Board Journal, The School Administrator, and The Arithmetic Teacher.