Indiana’s Common Core Pushback makes the Wall Street Journal

Our recent legislative victory was covered in the Wall Street Journal article, Learning Goals Spur Backlash!  The article was prominently displayed and the only one on page A3.

Indiana has gone the farthest in slowing things down, thanks to two Indianapolis mothers. Heather Crossin learned of Common Core in the fall of 2011 when her daughter brought home a math book linked to the standards that she found to be weaker than the previous textbook. She was incensed the standards were adopted with little public comment and teamed with another mom to lead a statewide effort to drop the standards. The proposal failed, but lawmakers voted last week to reassess the state’s participation.

“This is an unprecedented loss of local control and we were not going to stand for it,” Ms. Crossin said.

The article pointed out the following:

Indiana’s Republican-controlled legislature passed legislation Friday that calls for the state board of education to hold hearings on the standards and reconsider its 2010 decision to adopt them. Legislatures in Michigan, Alabama and several other states are considering anti-Common Core bills, and the Republican National Committee in April called Common Core a “straightjacket on academic freedom and achievement.” Sen. Charles Grassley (R., Iowa) is seeking to prohibit federal funding for any Common Core efforts.

Tuesday, Common Core was dealt a blow by one of its staunchest supporters. Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, called for a moratorium on linking teacher evaluations to Common Core assessments until the standards are “properly implemented and field tested.” While teacher unions have complained about using test scores in performance reviews, Ms. Weingarten has championed Common Core. She said Tuesday the standards are “creating a serious backlash as officials seek to make them count before they make them work.”

Common Core pushback is sweeping the nation and is here to stay, and is gaining more and more media attention every day.  As Hoosiers we can be proud that our efforts helped make this happen!