Navigating Implementation of the Common Core State Standards provides step-by-step strategies to ramp up the best of standards-based instructional practice at all levels of the organization. This is the first book in a series of four handbooks designed to provide a systematic approach to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). The standards are explained, as well as why they are fair and effective. How to prepare faculty, monitor the effectiveness of the standards, and allocate time and money to implement them is also discussed. Readers will learn the organizational features of the CCSS for both literacy and mathematics; understand the historical imperatives that shaped the CCSS; learn how the CCSS meet the needs of all students, not just some; and learn how to design and implement an action plan for CCSS in a school, district, or state education department. This handbook series, Getting Ready for the Common Core Handbook Series, effectively turns the reader's attention from the "e;what"e; to the "e;how"e;--it addresses how the CCSS should influence leadership, teaching, and learning. Each handbook in the series focuses on a unifying theme to provide leaders and educators with the rationale and tools for navigating the terrain of implementing the Common Core. Book Two is Navigating the English Language Arts Common Core State Standards; Book Three is Navigating the Mathematics Common Core State Standards; Book Four is Navigating Assessment and Collaboration with the Common Core State Standards.