Indiana’s proposed education standards are a ‘warmed-over’ version of Common Core, expert says

An education expert sought by Gov. Mike Pence to review part of the proposed academic standards intended to replace Common Core says the draft is a warmed-over version of the national standards.

Sandra Stotsky, a retired University of Arkansas professor and well-known Common Core opponent, has told Pence she won’t take part in the state’s drafting process unless a new version of the standards relies little on Common Core.

State education officials overseeing the process say revisions are ongoing and the final proposal will be unique and rigorous.

Read more:Gov. Mike Pence signs bill to end Common Core, but not its influence

The opinion of Stotsky, who helped review Indiana’s earlier academic standards, has been considered essential by some lawmakers and others to ensure Indiana’s new math and English standards are high-quality and considerably different from Common Core.

But in an email to Pence on March 17, Stotsky said state officials have so far created a “warmed-over version of Common Core’s standards” for English language arts. Concern, she said, comes from a state analysis that the source of proposed English standards for Grades 6-12 is more than 90 percent from Common Core.

“I cannot tell you where the problems are in the process that was followed, but Indiana is not on its way to having anything remotely resembling first-class academic standards,” Stotsky wrote to Pence.

Pence has said that the new standards will “be written by Hoosiers for Hoosiers and that they are going to be uncommonly high.”

Stotsky’s comments come as the two agencies overseeing the standards drafting — the Department of Education and the Center for Education & Career Innovation — are barreling toward a deadline to complete a final version by April 14. A week later the Indiana Education Roundtable will decide whether to recommend the version’s passage by the State Board of Education on April 28.

The comments also come as education observers across the country look to see how Indiana handles a move away from Common Core. Indiana is the only state now rewriting its own academic goals after having earlier joined 45 other states in adopting the national standards.

Common Core has become a target for educators and politicians in the past few years. Conservatives worry it takes away too much state control and is driven by the U.S. Department of Education. Liberals see it as continuing the push for standardized testing in state education policy. Still others say the standards aren’t rigorous enough.

Legislation that would void the state’s Common Core standards as adopted in 2010 and require new standards to be in place by July 1 has been sent to Pence’s desk. In passing Senate Bill 91, lawmakers wanted to ensure Common Core would be removed from the state’s education system even though the state Board of Education has been working toward writing the new standards since last year.

Pence has until Thursday to decide whether to sign the bill, veto it or let it become law without his signature.

Stotsky and other Common Core critics have raised concerns over an analysis by the Center for Education & Career Innovation about the sources used to create a second version of the proposed English standards.

Teams of educators pulled from already established models to create the proposed standards. Sources include Common Core, the state’s 2009 standards that were adopted but not implemented, and Massachusetts’ standards for English.

An initial 98-page draft with more than 1,000 standards for math and English skills was released last month. The second draft, not released publicly, contained input from public comments.

According to the state’s English and language arts analysis:

• K-5 standards: Thirty-four percent come from Common Core with no change and 13 percent are edited Common Core standards. Forty-three percent are combined standards or standards from other states; 6 percent are Indiana Academic Standards unedited and 4 percent edited; and 20 percent are from Stotsky’s model standards, including 14 percent verbatim.

Of the total K-5 draft, 20 percent is from Stotsky’s model standards, including 14 percent verbatim.

• 6-12 standards: Seventy-three percent come from Common Core with no change and 20 percent are edited Common Core standards. Four percent are Indiana Academic Standards unedited, and 3 percent are combined standards or standards from other states.

Claire Fiddian-Green, Pence’s special assistant for education, said the draft will be revised multiple times before the state board holds a final vote. Last Wednesday and Thursday, teams who crafted the draft met to make changes. Input from national education experts is expected this week and will be folded into another version of the draft.

The proposal, she said, could be in its fifth version when the board receives it.

“I feel actually really good we have spent so much time on this. When we come through with this, no one is going to say to us ‘there was a rubber stamping’ on anything,” Fiddian-Green said, noting 150 educators have spent more than 5,000 hours on the draft.

Call Star reporter Eric Weddle at (317) 444-6222. Follow him on Twitter: @ericweddle.