Top Ten Reasons Common Core is BAD for Indiana

Support legislation to stop Common Core and restore LOCAL CONTROL of education!

1. Common Core Standards (CCS) is a national set of standards for math and English for K-12. It is a centrally controlled, top down approach to standards, curriculum and testing.

2. The CCS have NEVER been piloted in a classroom to assess student impact. We don’t take medicine without a clinical trial first. Why would we instruct our children with an untested product?

3. The CCS are owned and copyrighted by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, not Indiana. Our education leaders can’t alter or delete any standard, even if it is problematic. We must retain our right to govern standards and testing, not ceed this power outside our state. http://www.corestandards.org/public-license

4. Indiana’s former standards were judged superior to the Common Core by the Fordham Institute. The report found that Indiana’s former standards were more rigorous, clearer, and sequenced more appropriately. The problems with education will not be solved by changing the standards as they aren’t the problem.   http://edexcellencemedia.net/publications/2010/201007_state_education_standards_common_standards/Indiana.pdf

5. The CCS are not internationally benchmarked as initially promised. The mathematics standards put Hoosier students 2 years behind their high-performing, international counterparts by 8th grade. https://hoosiersagainstcommoncore.com/math/mathematics-professor-james-milgrams-testimony/

6. No cost analysis has been performed to look at fiscal impact. The cost of implementing the CCS and new tests will cost Indiana an estimated 263 million dollars more than budgeted. The new assessments require costly technology upgrades districts can’t afford. What education programs will be cut in order to pay for this?  https://hoosiersagainstcommoncore.com/how-much-will-the-common-core-cost/

7. CCS defines “College Readiness” as preparation for a two-year, non-selective community college- not a four year university. This will increase college remediation levels.  http://www.doe.mass.edu/boe/minutes/?yr=2010 February Meeting, page 6

8. The new federally funded PARCC test, which replaces ISTEP,  recommends testing students four times a year which greatly increases the amount of classroom time spent on testing. Parents and teachers are strongly against this practice.

9. The PARCC test does not allow for parents to review subjective test questions as Indiana code mandates. It also violates student data collection ethics by sharing Indiana students information with a national student database without parental consent.

10. The CCS contain specific pedagogy that dictates to teachers how to teach the content, thus limiting curriculum to a one-size-fits-all approach.  Establishing national standards and enforcing them with a high-stakes, federally funded test will mandate a national curriculum. There is no constitutional or statutory basis for national standards, national assessments, or national curricula. http://www.k12innovation.com/Manifesto/_V2_Home.html

Indiana can do better!