resistance to common core standards is growning

WaPo | Nearly all of the states and the District of Columbia have adopted the Common Core State Standards in English language arts and math and are in the process of getting ready to implement them by 2014. In a number of states, however, the standards are meeting with growing resistance for reasons including questions about who was behind the initiative and whether they are better than previous standards. Alabama, for example recently said it was pulling out of the two consortia that are working on creating standardized tests aligned with the standards. In this and the next two blog posts, we explore some of the issues surrounding the standards. (And you can see more here and here and here and here.)

This first post is about Indiana, which adopted the Common Core in 2010 under then state education superintendent Tony Bennett and where some teachers are already implementing them. Bennett was ousted in last November’s elections by veteran educator Glenda Ritz who opposed his support for corporate-based school reforms. Ritz does not want to get rid of the Common Core but wants to pause implementation and review the standards. She opposes a bill in the legislature that would pull the state out of the Common Core initiative. The Indiana Senate recently voted to halt the implementation — though not pull out of the initiative, though the state Board of Education is firmly behind the standards. If it is sounds messy, that is because it is.