Common Core critics plan to protest new Indiana standards

An Indiana group that led the fight to void Common Core standards here has a verdict on replacement standards offered up earlier this week by the Indiana Department of Education: they don’t like them and they’re ready to fight.

The group Hoosiers Against Common Core this afternoon announced it would hold a rally Monday at the statehouse about an hour before the Education Roundtable is scheduled to begin the process that could lead to adoption of the proposed standards.

“After reviewing the opinions of the subject area experts hired by the state to evaluate the proposed standards, Indiana puts students at risk by their adoption, ” Heather Crossin one of the group’s founders, said in a statement. “Returning to our former standards, which were judged superior, provides an easy transition for students and teachers to begin planning for the next school year.”

Crossin pointed to comments made by expert reviewers, invited by the education department to provide feedback, who have been harshly critical of the work of committees that devised the new standards. On Thursday, the Indianapolis Star and the Associated Press were among news outlets who reported that reviewers who had looked over the final draft standards continued to find them lacking.

In its statement, Hoosiers Against Common Core quoted one of those experts, Stanford professor James Milgram, calling the draft standards “horribly disorganized” and urging Indiana to instead return to the standards it had before it adopted Common Core in 2010.Common Core standards were intended to raise expectations for high school graduates to assure they are ready for college and careers. But critics in Indiana said they feared following Common Core could cede too much control over what Hoosier children are taught to policymakers outside the state, especially the federal government. The U.S. Department of Education did not create Common Core but does endorse the standards.Backlash against the Common Core was led by Crossin and Erin Tuttle, two Indianapolis private school parents, beginning in 2012. Eventually they persuaded lawmakers to pause implementation of Common Core last year and last month the legislature went further by passing a bill that voided Common Core and required new, locally-created standards to be approved by July 1.

Committees of educators and experts have been working with the education department since February to craft the new standards. They are scheduled to be considered first by the Education Roundtable next month and then by the Indiana State Board of Education for final approval on April 28.