By: Erin Tuttle
Hoosiers Against Common Core has released the side by side comparison of the new Indiana math standards to the Indiana 2009 standards and the Common Core. (LINK PROVIDED AT BOTTOM OF POST)
The comparison was performed by Ze’ev Wurman who served on the highly acclaimed California mathematics standards committee and is a former Us Department of Education employee. His comparison shows what many in the press have reported; the majority of the standards have been imported, some word for word, from the Common Core.
The most shocking difference is the number of standards added in the draft. It is a clear move away from the practice of fewer, clearer and deeper. The new math standards have over 455 standards in grades K-8, the Common Core only had 314. The highly acclaimed Indiana math standards from 2009 only had 171 standards in these grades.
The analysis shows that most all of the Common Core standards are included in the new draft, even those which were hotly protested by parents and teachers. The inclusion of over 141 new standards masks the percent of Common Core standards that were included in the new draft. While some correctly claim the new standards are only 60% Common Core, it doesn’t mean they cut out 40% of Common Core content, the new draft has been bloated with additional standards to offset the fact that close to 90% of the Common Core is included in the new draft.