Home educators are concerned about the Common Core because it’s an attempt to nationalize education. We are troubled by what we’ve observed in the process of developing “new” Indiana standards that look very similar to the “old” Common Core standards.
Dr. Terrence Moore, professor at Hillsdale College, is a Hoosier and has testified at the Statehouse regarding the Common Core state standards. Today he has an excellent blog post about the “process”.
“As a college professor and former head of a K-12 school, I know when a student is giving me the runaround. Here is one scenario I have been through more than once: I hand back a student’s paper—clearly written in a rush—that is bleeding with my markings on typos, incomplete sentences, contradictory statements, and bizarre punctuation. The student looks at the grade, gasps, and then exclaims, “Oh, my gosh! How could I have done such a thing? I handed in my rough draft by mistake. But here is my final draft!” (which the student just happens to have in his book bag).
Just such a scenario is unfolding in Indiana as the state school board tells citizens that the “new” standards in mathematics and English, unveiled a couple of weeks ago and meant to replace the Common Core, were only meant to be a draft; that the board was eager to solicit public input; that they have created a “process” (a word that we have heard ten thousand times by now) that is completely transparent; and that the hearings people just drove two hours to attend so that they could speak for 180 seconds were only the first step in coming up with an entirely new set of “college- and career-ready standards” entirely different from the Common Core. Is anyone buying this line? I see three substantial objections to this process as it has unfolded so far.”
Read more here.
