Indiana Ranks High Among Post-Common Core State Standards

A new review says Indiana has some of the strongest standards for math and English language arts (ELA) among states that don’t follow the Common Core, while several other states received poor marks.

The Thomas B. Fordham Institute has reviewed state academic standards before, but the conservative-leaning group’s latest report looks specifically at math and ELA standards in states that no longer use or never adopted the Common Core.

Indiana was the only state to rank “good” in both categories, while half of states in each category received a “weak” or “inadequate” designation. Indiana's standards draw heavily from the nationally crafted guidelines.

Senior Research and policy associate David Griffith says ultimately, the rankings show the importance of providing teachers with the guidance they need.

“Our biggest recommendation for most states is that they need to focus on implementation,” he says. “For most states, and certainly for Indiana, the primary message is you know, just having good standards - that’s really only the beginning.”

Indiana was an early adopter of Common Core, but was also the first to move away from the standards in 2015. The review looked at a total of 14 other states that don’t use Common Core for math, ELA or both.