Susan Ryan is a senior consultant at McREL. She has reviewed, revised, and developed language arts standards documents for many districts, state agencies, and education organizations. Ms. Ryan has conducted alignment reviews on assessment items, instructional materials, and curriculum materials. Her work with the Common Core State Standards includes the production of gap analyses, crosswalks, transition documents, alignment reviews, and research support for state departments of education. Ms. Ryan has also facilitated teacher leaders in curriculum development and implementation of the Common Core. She was a consulting state content expert for English language arts during the development of the Common Core and a state consultant to the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) consortium. A former high school language arts teacher, she holds a BA in English from the University of Colorado and a secondary teaching license through Metropolitan State University of Denver.

As a principal consultant, Dana Frazee works in several areas of McREL's field services group: Success in Sight continuous school improvement, guaranteed and viable curriculum development, school audits, and teaching reading in the content areas. Dana has presented at numerous regional and national workshops on a variety of subjects, including teaching reading in the content areas, data-based decision making, writing in the content areas, formative assessment, continuous school improvement, effective instructional strategies, and afterschool teaching strategies. She is a coauthor of Math in Afterschool: An Instructor's Guide to the Afterschool Training Toolkit. Prior to joining McREL, Dana taught middle school and high school, served as the principal of a K–8 charter school, and worked as an educational consultant for the Coalition of Essential School and Expeditionary Learning Schools.

John Kendall (Series Editor) is Senior Director in Research at McREL in Denver. Having joined McREL in 1988, Mr. Kendall conducts research and development activities related to academic standards. He directs a technical assistance unit that provides standards-related services to schools, districts, states, and national and international organizations. He is the author of Understanding Common Core State Standards, the senior author of Content Knowledge: A Compendium of Standards and Benchmarks for K–12 Education, and the author or coauthor of numerous reports and guides related to standards-based systems. These works include High School Standards and Expectations for College and the Workplace; Essential Knowledge: The Debate over What American Students Should Know; and Finding the Time to Learn: A Guide. He holds an MA in Classics and a BA in English Language and Literature from the University of Colorado at Boulder.