Education Week - March 12, 2014 - 26

Governance, Policy Feuds Roil Indiana K-12 Landscape
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ing or slowing the implementation
of the common-core standards,
which were adopted by 46 states
and the District of Columbia, Indiana
has gone furthest in that direction.
The state is now on the verge
of adopting new draft standards
to replace the common core, which
covers English/language arts and
math.
Draft Standards
The draft standards, developed
by Indiana teachers and professors
from state universities, are a
combination of the common core
and prior Indiana content standards
from the last decade. They're
the result of a measure passed last
year that mandated a review of the
common core and the consideration
of new standards-a law rooted in
common-core opposition from GOP
Sen. Scott Schneider and Indiana
education activists.
The state board is scheduled to vote
on new content standards April 9.
"In actuality, we've been teaching
both as a transition," Ms. Ritz said in
a phone interview last week, referring
to the previous state standards
and the common core.
She cited her particular concern
about the common math standards.
During her campaign in 2012, Ms.
Ritz expressed skepticism about the
common core, but she indicated that
outright opposition to the standards
hasn't been her focus.
"It's a good time right now to decide
what it is that we feel we should keep,
what is it we feel we should change,"
Ms. Ritz said. "It's never been about
common core or no common core."
Brad Oliver, a state board mem-
ber appointed by Gov. Pence, said
he's pleased with the ongoing dialogue
and the clear steps officials
know they must take. "I don't think
we're that far from reaching a con-
well as performance on various indicators
as part of the future A-F
system.
Those changes were developed last
year by a panel that included input
from both Ms. Ritz and legislators,
and were later adopted by the state
board.
But the state board still haven't
decided precisely which data will go
into creating the rankings. Mr. Oliver
indicated that state leaders must still
about the extent to which growth
would matter in comparison with
performance before a new system of
A-F accountability is final.
Crucially, it remains to be seen
ABOVE: Jill Olecki, with her son
Iggy, age 1, speaks at a hearing
in Indianapolis on the state's
draft academic standards.
Jenny Abell teaches a 2nd grade
class at Clear Creek Elementary
in Indianapolis.
"The irony is that the legislature
has never gotten involved in standards
before," he said.
Looming Issues
sensus on standards," he added.
Even so, state legislators were
poised early this month to officially
void the state board's 2010 adoption of
the common core. And some anti-common-core
activists believe the state is
about to adopt merely a warmed-over
version of the common standards.
But Rep. Robert Behning, a Republican
who chairs the House
education committee, argued that
despite his own concerns about the
common core, the time has come for
Indiana to move on.
The common core is far from the
only issue on policymakers' agenda.
The state's A-F school accountability
system, for example, was
upended following revelations that
then-Superintendent Bennett altered
the grade of an Indianapolis
charter school in 2012. Ms. Ritz
said she's satisfied with a major
shift to include student growth as
For Teachers, Standards Become Classroom Reality
By Andrew Ujifusa
Indianapolis
Indiana is moving closer to adopting
a blend of the Common Core
State Standards and standards it
developed prior to the common core,
but a look inside one classroom suggests
that teachers in the state may
be a step ahead of policymakers.
One morning last month, Flora
Gitsis, a 5th grade teacher at
Indianapolis' Crooked Creek Elementary
School-where state Superintendent
of Public Instruction
Glenda Ritz used to be a media
specialist-instructed her students
on writing a personal essay. Along
with student-teacher John Blum,
Ms. Gitsis first displayed on a projector
screen the relevant standards
from the English/language
arts standards the state adopted
in 2006. Then, they switched the
screen to show the common-core
standard on essay writing.
Ms. Gitsis and Mr. Blum didn't
explicitly point out to students
that they were using two sets
of content standards. But while
the 2006 Indiana standard on
essay writing focuses on linking
paragraphs together and putting
events in chronological order, the
relevant common-core standard
on the screen puts a much greater
emphasis on students' knowledge
of "academic vocabulary," as Principal
Kimberly Piper put it.
That means it's crucial they understand
what a thesis and a conclusion
are, for example, and can
show that they do.
In general, Ms. Gitsis said after
class, the common core goes further
in exploring what students can and
should understand about a topic or
demonstrable skill.
"The Indiana state standards, I
feel, are a little bit more cut and
dried," she added.
Melding Process
Merging two different sets of
standards at Crooked Creek isn't
what Ms. Gitsis or Ms. Piper necessarily
wants. But a law passed
year, the same one that triggered a
review of common core in the state
and consideration of new standards,
has required schools to keep
the state's prior standards in many
classrooms even as a planned transition
to the common-core standards
moves ahead. In practice,
that means grades 2-5 at Crooked
Creek are using both common core
and previous content standards in
English/language arts and math,
while kindergarten and 1st grade
have already fully switched to the
common core.
Asked if teachers had expressed
a clear preference for either set of
standards, Ms. Piper responded: "I
don't know if you'd get an answer.
... There's high standards and high
expectations anyway."
She added, however, that it sometimes
has been difficult to be "in
flux" between the standards, even
setting aside the current policy discussions
at the state level.
While the principal said the
change in standards has been a little
more noticeable in math, Susan
Cosand, a math instructional specialist
at the school, said the essential
"body of knowledge" hasn't been
dramatically disrupted, even though
the grades at which certain standards
are introduced have shifted.
"We just want something that's
clean and clear and concise," Ms.
Cosand said.
if board members and others will
heed Superintendent Ritz's call for
what she says is the most important
upcoming issue: a state assessment
focused on "real diagnostic information"
for teachers, and not a pass-fail
test. She also wants less testing in
general, and less of a focus on student
data.
Meanwhile, an Indiana House bill
that would prioritize student data
and format the information for easier
use by lawmakers when considering
K-12 and workforce issues doesn't
augur well for that approach.
"Any one of those issues can bring
back tension to the relationship between
the board and the state superintendent,"
Mr. Oliver said.
The tension in Indiana's education
governance is now built into the system,
and isn't confined to sporadic
arguments.
Indiana voters have often split
their ballots on governor and state
schools superintendent: From 1988
through 2004, they selected a member
of one party as governor and a
member of another party as schools
chief. But the relationship between
Superintendent Ritz and Gov. Pence
has been particularly tense.
The governor last August cre-
ated a new agency, the Center for
Education and Career Innovation,
to foster greater cohesion between
It doesn't hurt that the school
has a strong foundation to build on:
Crooked Creek Elementary, which
features an International Baccalaureate
program, has received annual
A grades under the state's accountability
system ever since Indiana
began using the A-F rubric in 2010.
The school's population also is
racially and economically diverse.
Just over half (51 percent) of its
students are eligible for free and
reduced-price meals, while 45
percent are black, 33 percent are
white, 11 percent are multiracial,
8 percent are Hispanic, and 3 percent
are Asian.
Down the hall from Ms. Gitsis on
a particular day, Jenny Abell's 2nd
grade class was using a language arts
textbook, Journeys, that features an
insignia stating it is common-corealigned.
But Ms. Abell, who's been
teaching for 24 years, was also straddling
the two sets of standards.
Ms. Abell had students identify
key vocabulary words during a
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