The Indiana State Board of Education on April 28 voted 10-1 to adopt a new set of benchmarks to guide what students in kindergarten through 12th grade should learn in math and English, the Associated Press reports. The new standards were created by a panel of university faculty from the state and by representatives from science and technology industries.
Indiana was one of the first states to adopt the Common Core State Standards, and this vote will make it the first state to formally abandon them. The move is expected to end what has been months of debate over the Common Core.
“I hope that with this conversation behind us, we can stick with these standards and make sure we’re not continually moving the goal posts on our students and educators,” the AP quoted board member at-large Gordon Hendry as saying. “The reasons academic standards have been successful in places like Massachusetts is because legislators and policymakers picked a direction and stayed with it.”
Although many people say the standards are too close to the Common Core standards, Superintendent of Public Instruction Glenda Ritz said she “couldn’t be more pleased once again that we have strong standards in Indiana.”
But a quick look at the new standards show that they include higher-level math than the Common Core at the high school level. The Common Core skips calculus, but Indiana’s new standards, for example, provide for calculus. And although the Common Core includes some trigonometry, most of it is put into honors-level courses. Indiana is looking to teach all students about sines and cosines.
Not everybody thinks Indiana’s new standards are all that, however, including Andrea Neal, the board member who voted against endorsement. “It’s malpractice to adopt math standards that make no sense to mathematicians,” the Indianapolis Star quoted her as saying, noting national experts who share her concerns.
In any case, despite objections, the new standards have been adopted. It is hoped that the approval, which came a few months before the July deadline, will be early enough to give teachers time to prepare lessons and model units for implementation in the fall.
