Most states are participating in the initiative led by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers to develop and adopt voluntary common core state standards that will outline what elementary and secondary school students are expected to learn in English language arts and mathematics. Implementing these standards will require complementary and sometimes complex changes to a host of education policies and programs, from teacher preparation to testing. To learn more about states' progress and plans for implementing the common core state standards, the Center on Education Policy (CEP) surveyed state deputy superintendents of education or their designees in October and November of 2010. Responses were received from 42 states and the District of Columbia, which is counted as a state in the tallies in this report. Several key findings can be drawn from states' survey responses. These are: (1) State officials cited educational quality issues more often than they cited federal Race to Top (RttT) requirements as important factors in their states' decision to adopt the common core state standards; (2) Many states anticipate it will take until 2013 or later to fully implement the more complex changes associated with the common core state standards; (3) Although most adopting states will require school districts to implement the common core state standards, the majority of these states are not requiring districts to make complementary changes in curriculum and teacher programs; (4) The hope that the common core state standards will encourage a seamless system of education from elementary school through college is far from being realized; (5) Developing teacher evaluation systems geared to the common core state standards and finding funds were most often cited by states as major challenges to implementing the standards; and (6) Race to the Top funding appears to be helping with implementation of the common core state standards. Study Methods is appended. (Contains 5 figures, 1 table and 2 footnotes.)