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Heritage
Foundation
Governor
Pence Pauses Indiana Common Core
Standards
By Lindsey Burke
May 17, 2013
Indiana
has just given every state that agreed
to adopt Common Core national education standards and tests a lesson in
prudent
governance. On Saturday, Governor Mike Pence (R) signed the Common Core
“Pause”
bill into law, halting implementation of Common Core until state
agencies,
teachers, and taxpayers better understand the implications of Common
Core
adoption.
Indiana
law now requires that the Common Core
standards be evaluated and compared to existing state standards, and
that a
cost assessment be conducted by the state’s Office of Management and
Budget
(OMB) before implementation moves forward. It’s something every state
that
adopted Common Core should have done before agreeing to do so.
Specifically,
the law states that after May 15, 2013, the state board may take no
further
actions to implement as standards for the state or direct the
department to
implement any common core standards developed by the Common Core State
Standards Initiative until the state board conducts a comprehensive
evaluation
of the common core standards.
While
the common standards Indiana adopted
remain in effect, the state has taken the necessary steps to evaluate
the
merits of Common Core standards and assessments, and their costs.
What
exactly does the Common Core Pause
require? The Indiana Department of Education must provide a written
evaluation
of the Common Core standards before July 1, 2013, which must be
submitted to
the governor, legislative council, state board of education, and the
legislative study committee established by the Pause law. The
legislative study
committee will evaluate Common Core, and produce a report by November
1, 2013,
to:
Compare
Indiana’s existing state standards to
Common Core standards;
“[C]onsider
best practices in developing and
adopting the standards, seeking information from a broad range of
sources,”
which should include teachers, content matter experts and “any other
standards
the study committee considers to be superior standards”; and
Evaluate
the cost to the state and school
districts of moving toward Common Core assessments.
In
addition to the state Department of
Education evaluation and the legislative study committee report, the
Common
Core pause law requires that by September 1, 2013, the Office of
Management and
Budget provide a fiscal impact statement on the cost of Common Core to
taxpayers. Specifically, the Pause law states that the Indiana OMB, “in
consultation with the state board, shall provide an opinion concerning
the
fiscal impact to the state and school corporations if the state board:
(1)
fully implements the common core standards; and (2) discontinues the
implementation
of the common core standards.”
Finally,
the law requires the state board of
education to hold at least three public meetings and take public
testimony on
Common Core standards and tests.
While
the law does not prohibit the use of
Common Core standards implemented by the state board, the board may not
require
the use of Common Core assessments until the board receives the
evaluations
conducted by the state Department of Education, the legislative study
committee, and the state OMB. Pence stated:
I
have long believed that education is a state
and local function and we must always work to ensure that our students
are
being taught to the highest academic standards and that our curriculum
is
developed by Hoosiers, for Hoosiers.… The legislation I sign today hits
the
pause button on Common Core so Hoosiers can thoroughly evaluate which
standards
will best serve the interests of our kids…
Read
the rest of the article at Heritage
Foundation
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