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| Heather Crossin, Emmett McGroarty, Erin Tuttle |
A Stealth Campaign To Bypass Parents
At first Heather thought maybe her ignorance of Common Core was her fault. Maybe, with her kids (as she imagined) safely ensconced in good Catholic schools, she hadn't paid attention.
That's when she and Erin started contacting people - "and we found out something more shocking: Nobody had any idea," Heather told me.
A friend of Heather's who is a former reporter for a state newspaper and now a teacher didn't know. Nor did her state senator, Scott Schneider, even though he sat on the state senate’s Education Committee. (In Indiana, as in most states, Common Core was adopted by the Board of Education without consulting the legislature.) Nor, evidently, did the state’s education reporters - Heather could find literally no press coverage of the key moment when Indiana's Board of Education abandoned its fine state standards and well-regarded state tests in favor of Common Core.
"They brought in David Coleman, the architect of the standards, to give a presentation, they asked a few questions, there was no debate, no cost analysis, just a sales job, and everybody rubber-stamped it," Heather said.
So began an 18-month journey in which these two mothers probably changed education history.
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