COURTESY OF DAVID COLEMAN
THE
CORE
together. At the time, Minnich
only expected an informal group
of about 10 states to join in. But
a series of meetings organized by
CCSSO combined with simultaneous efforts by outside groups ultimately led to a level of buy-in that
far surpassed his expectations.
Government officials meeting
in airport hotels weren’t the only
ones thinking about these problems. In New York, college buddies
David Coleman and Jason Zimba
had created — then sold — the
Grow Network, a startup that
sought to make the results of tests
under No Child Left Behind inform teachers’ instruction. Coleman recalled they were shocked
to discover in their research that
learning standards tended to be
so scattershot and cumbersome
that it was almost impossible for
a teacher to convey them to her
students with any depth. Existing
learning standards, he felt, were
simply a laundry list, a product of
school-board politics.
Coleman, now president of the
College Board, and Zimba, a former Bennington Colleg