Forty-six states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Department of Defense schools have adopted the Common Core State Standards. Adoption was only the first step. Ensuring that the standards will improve student learning will require new assessments, curriculums, instructional materials and resources, and professional development. Implementation will likely be expensive--a particular challenge at a time when state budgets are still climbing back from their recession-era lows. States and districts, however, are moving ahead with implementation efforts. A recent report by the Center on Education Policy (2012), based on a survey of officials from 37 states that have adopted the Common Core State Standards, found that all surveyed states have developed plans to fully implement the standards by 2014, the year that assessments tied to the standards are expected to be operational. While state efforts are underway, national organizations and companies are developing materials and preparing educators to revamp instruction and supervision around the new standards. The fact that the standards have been adopted by so many states opens the door for cross-state partnerships that could not have taken place when each state developed its own standards. Because of these efforts and others, there is some cause for optimism that the outcome of this round of standards setting might produce better results than previous rounds did. The level of activity that states are engaged in, the possibilities offered by technology and cross-state collaborations, and the extraordinary effort to develop new assessments suggest that the Common Core State Standards might generate some real changes in instruction.