It wasn’t the most solid week in the movement to swap out the school standards known as Common Core State Standards for a homegrown set of measures in Indiana.
Sure, the General Assembly was able to get a bill to Gov. Mike Pence last month to scrap the set of college-readiness standards introduced during former Gov. Mitch Daniels’ administration and incorporated in federal education policy championed by President Barack Obama.
That bill was born out of growing distrust of the federal reach into state education policy, which eventually overtook the initial grumbling from teachers about Common Core’s makeup. Pence promised to create new Indiana standards that were “uncommonly high.”
But on the sidelines, where governors across the nation are watching to see how the Common Core story plays out here, Indiana’s defiance was getting the once over.
First, stories came about how Utah Gov. Gary Herbert said he’d spoken with Pence about the school standards philosophy: “In essence, they’re saying they’re creating what’s called the Indiana Core. It’s not the Common Core ... but their standards are almost mirroring exactly what is commonly referred to as the Common Core standards.”
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