If the Common Core State Standards are unsuccessful, teachers may be blamed, writes Tom Whitby, an adjunct professor of education at St. Joseph's College in New York. However, as districts prepare for full implementation of the standards, they are varied in their approach to preparing teachers for common core through professional development, Whitby writes. "It might have behooved the policy makers to have first considered an educator's Common Core for professional development and support so that the very people who are most needed to support, enforce and teach under CCSS will be properly prepared," he writes.