Mike Pence Rebrands Common Core in Indiana

Governor Mike Pence (R-IN) is taking victory laps after the Common Core was repealed in Indiana.  However the replacement process has left much to be desired and critics claim that Governor Pence is just doing a rebrand.  Utah Governor Gary Herbert revealed after a discussion he had with Governor Pence.

Joy Pullman of the Heartland Institute, an Indiana resident, wrote back in February the very process being set up to review and rewrite Indiana’s standards was nothing but a rebrand.  Heather Crossin of Hoosiers Against Common Core said the panel was stacked.

The final draft of the standards were given poor reviews by those who reviewed and gave poor marks to the earlier drafts of the proposed Indiana standards.

Common Core opponents attended Governor Pence’s education roundtable that voted, along with Pence, in favor of the new draft standards last Monday.  During that meeting when he said, “Clearly these standards were written by Hoosiers and for Hoosiers,” laughter could be heard.

I think it is safer to say these standards were “paraphrased by Hoosiers,” not written by them.

Pullman had a stinging critique of Governor Pence’s vote:

Either Indiana Gov. Mike Pence and his advisors can’t tell what will foster a good K–12 curriculum, or they don’t care. Monday, Pence voted for a set of curriculum and testing mandates to replace Common Core, even though a chorus of Cassandras has warned the new standards are of lower quality. Pence congratulated himself for being the first governor to rid his state of Common Core as a crowd of several hundred anti-Common Core onlookers booed him and the committee that cast the vote.

No one without a vested interest has a word of praise for these false-termed standards, which go to the state board of education this coming Monday (today) and will likely pass since Pence controls the board. Everyone else, both pro- and anti-Common Core analysts, trashed this Common Core replacement…

…Pence’s decision is all the more foolish because Indiana has been renowned as one of the two or three states with the highest standards in the nation. That was a central reason parents complained at descending into Common Core. Now Indiana has even worse standards than the Common Core Hoosier mothers and fathers spent three exhausting years attempting to defenestrate.

On Fox News Sunday yesterday Governor Pence did not rule out running for President in 2016.  He told Chris Wallace, “I’m always humbled and flattered anytime I’m mentioned for the highest office in the land, but I honesty think much of that talk is the result of the progress the people of Indiana have been making. I mean, the fact is, we have the lowest unemployment rate in the Midwest, we’ve demonstrated the ability to balance our budgets, cut taxes even while we invest in expanded educational opportunities and infrastructure. So, I’ll take the compliment to heart but I will to defer it to the progress the people of Indiana have made and we’ll stay focused here at home.”

And now he just tried to pull the wool over the eyes of Hoosier parents, Iowans be forewarned if Pence comes asking for our vote in 2016.