Legislation signed by Gov. Mike Pence makes Indiana the first state to step back from the standards that establish proficiency targets in math and reading…..
But the national education standards have been the focus of vocal criticism from conservative grassroots groups, who believe Common Core amounts to a government takeover of education. Critics have said Indiana’s new standards are strikingly similar to the Common Core framework and the new legislation is little more than a change in name rather than substance, the Associated Press reports. SOURCE: Indiana Drops Common Core Education Standards | TIME.com.
For those of you who might not know I am a Hoosier. I was born here and spent most of my life here. Indiana is one of those rare States outside of the South and Prairie States that has always been solidly Republican. They overwhelmingly control both houses of State legislature and have a party machine hand-picked Republican governor. We are not a big State but still much larger than many other red States. We have a population of about 6.5 million which makes us number sixteen of the fifty States.
One thing I have come to understand about Indiana, and most of the other red States for that matter, is that if a Democrat supports something then it must be wrong and avoided at all costs. Governor Pence is constantly reminding me of this fact. So, when he came out with “his” plan for education it is not surprising that he first of all trashed the national one. It is also not surprising that he basically claimed the same standards as his own. Now it is a Republican plan and not from those nasty Democrats. This is somewhat typical of politics today and that is why I now for the most part stay away from it.
Is it better for each State to have its own strategy for educating its youth or is a national strategy better? I want to drop back again to the Indiana model to explain my answer to this question. I’m not sure how the rest of the country does it but in Indiana each school system is funded by local property taxes. As a result Hamilton County which is one of the richest counties in the nation and of course the richest in the State has a high school campus that rivals most colleges. They have multiple olympic size swimming pools, a gigantic dramatic arts auditorium and computers in every room. By contrast my county, which is the third poorest in the State has absolutely nothing compared to Hamilton. This disparity of course also show up in the percentage of those who go on to college.
When you step back and look at it, it seems obvious that segregation is the result of this type of funding. It is not race segregation as in the past but economic segregation and I believe it is just as dangerous as the one we faced in the 1980s.
Since I am running out of space I will give you a quick answer to the overall question. A common universal strategy is the only answer if we are to compete with the rest of the world in the 21st century and beyond. To leave it up to the States will most assuredly result in a nation wide segregation once again. Can we really afford to have that happen?
RJ's Corner - Having My Say 
We are the ONLY true democracy, believing that all children should be educated through age 18 (high school). National curriculums all over the world depend on 75% of students leaving the system by age 12-14 (some age 10).
Trying to educate ALL to a high standard has not been proven to be easy or successful- ever. Even in my day, kids were “allowed” to go to trade school after 8th grade.
Which brings us to core standards. All education was local for the good of the community. Now kids move….
The federal government, when they saw that 100% of third graders would not read on level, came up with Race for the Top. Race to the Top is in charge of most of the money that goes to the Department of Education. Race to the Top came up with Core Curriculum.
Common Core was written by a few “experts” from the testing company (Pearson) and experts from Gates foundation (mostly professors). I understand there were ten on thae panel.
They believe in verbal communication for all mathematics in the deconstructionist method and highly suggest children should learn to read pretty young- then learn to deconstruct smaller passages instead of full pieces of literature.
Both methods highly favor girls over boys mind development (which are heavily documented by major longitude research finished in the last few years).
Guess who sold most of the materials in the schools today?
Sorry to say- much like the hated defense industry- this has little do do with the actual education of our children and more to do with making money by a few companies (in my very humble opinion).
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I have to agree with Janette here. This sounds so good on the surface…just like Obamacare…but, it would in essence lower the standards of high achieving state education systems and greatly increase testing and bureaucracy. Minnesota is one of five states I believe that did not fully adopt Common Core. The reason is that our state has consistently and purposefully built it’s own standards that produce very good results. Nothing is perfect of course, but in this case I don’t think Federal oversight will improve schools across the nation. My fear is that we will be pulled down to a lower standard than we have now. I don’t know how or if property tax will change but somehow I doubt that the issue of pools and auditoriums you mentioned will change one bit. This just reeks of political games to garner votes and favors.
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Thanks for the usual comments you two. With this post I am not so much supporting common core as I am talking about the disparity of educational opportunities depending on where you live. Common Core to me is more like the federal minimum wage. It should be considered the minimum not the standard. If States want to build further they should be encouraged to do that.
But yes I do agree that our political processes pollute this area as well as most others. Janette is generally much more of a pessimist about federal initiatives than I am. I don’t think the Common Core is some government conspiracy to get more of our tax dollars. Maybe I am the naive one but I think people, and that includes federal employees are just trying to level the social justice playing field the best way they see possible….
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Do you like comments or would you rather we just listen?
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I’m not sure what brought on this question Janette. If I didn’t like comments I would turn that option off. Sometimes I don’t reply to comments if I don’t think it will add to the conversation. Or maybe I hurt your feelings about your perceived frequent pessimism? If so then you need to grow a thicker skin. ;)
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