Please help me understand…I seriously want your help.
I will make assertions based on what I have heard and begun to understand. I’ll admit that my assertions may be wrong and I would greatly welcome your challenge and explanation of why I’m wrong. Here I go…
We are not doing Common Core in Indiana because we are better than other states.
– Really? I’m proud of Indiana and our work, but humility over arrogance seems a better way to model change for our children. Are we going to spend time and money to creating something that is already created and paid for just because we want to do it ourselves?
We are not doing Common Core in Indiana because we want our sovereignty from the federal government.
– I agree that education should be led by states. I wouldn’t mind if the federal DoE was dissolved; however, does the federal government have a duty to ensure that all states are equally preparing students? I don’t know.
– Is something wrong just because it is from the federal government?
We are going to write our own standards in Indiana.
– We must have College and Career Readiness standards… Are we going to spend three years creating an item bank of questions when that work has essentially already been completed by those who wrote CC&R standards?
We are going to create our own assessment in Indiana.
– We are going to spend $20,000,000 to $40,000,000 to write a test that has already been written and paid for by the federal government.
– We’ll contract with a company who has already written questions aligned to Common Core. They are going to use the same questions that are being used in the Common Core assessment. These companies will get to charge Indiana for work that they have already done…they will just put a different name on it.
Indiana has NO plan for formative assessments aligned to the future state assessments.
– Where is the money coming from to do this?
– Again, the federal government has already done this.
Help me understand folks!
jackparkerblog 
Not super sure about the way things are working in Indy, but as a Tennessee teacher, I can honestly say that I’m tired of Common Core being shoved down my throat as the ‘greatest thing since sliced bread’. I understand the need to align standards. I also understand the push for college and career readiness.
The true reality is, from my perspective, the only one benefitting from the brouhaha are the testing companies. Understand please, that I’m not a conspiracy theorist, or even a complainer, I am just seeing CC in action. The students and teachers are genuinely frustrated and discouraged. I am not opposed to change–not just for change’s sake or to line Pearson’s pockets.
Do a little research on the states that have adopted CC and see what you think.
Having said all that- hope you and yours are well. Would love to see you at some point. Have a wonderful holiday season and a Blessed Christmas.
Thanks for your comment and a big Amen! to us keeping testing companies profitable. Sorry for your struggles with CC. Whatever we end up with in Indiana, we will likely have standards that are 90% just like CC… We all have a lot of work to do. I just pray it is purposeful.