Administrators, teachers, parents, and students are familiar with policy and reform changes in the United States' educational system. Our nation is well-known for frequently adopting and implementing new reforms, especially in the core subjects of English, history, mathematics, and science (The National Academy of Education, 2009). Teachers are major catalysts for reform implementation and change within schools, largely because they will ultimately be responsible for implementing their ideas in the classroom (Smith & Southerland, 2007). Teachers implement and structure the curriculum in a fashion that could either benefit or detract from the intended reform. With this in mind, the goal of this dissertation is to understand how teachers prioritize reforms. I use the example of the Common Core State Standards in mathematics to illustrate how teachers understand and interpret reform.A mixed-methods study to address the following research questions: (1) How do teachers prioritize reform? and (2) How do teachers prioritize reform related to the Common Core State Standards in mathematics? Phase I used a qualitative approach, and Phase II used a quantitative approach. In Phase I, I addressed my first research question by conducting interviews with every fourth grade teacher in one district in the Midwest. In Phase II, I addressed my second research question by conducting 400 teacher surveys in three states: Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan.
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