Indiana Common Core Costs

Indiana Department of Education:

It will cost Indiana$387 million to implement the Common Core Standards in the state.  Where will Indiana get $387 million in these difficult economic times?

The cost to implement the Common Core Standards (CCS) should be a major consideration for each of the 46 states (45 states plus the District of Columbia) that adopted the CCS.  The Pioneer Institute has published a major white paper that defines the CCS implementation costs; I produced a report that shows the cost for each of the 46 states.

You have just experienced a difficult election that impacted Dr. Tony Bennett's position.  This might be a good time to take a hard look at the Common Core Standards in your state.  How much will it really cost to implement the new Common Core Standards?  The following analysis and the two reports can assist you in this endeavor.  

Henry W. Burke

E-mail: hwburke@cox.net  

 _______________________________

Indiana Common Core Implementation Costs

by Henry W. Burke

11.08.12

It will cost Indiana $387 million to implement the Common Core Standards (CCS).  Why would Indiana spend $387 million to adopt the mediocre CCS when its state standards were exemplary?

I will call your attention to an excellent Pioneer Institute report, "National Cost of Aligning States and Localities to the Common Core Standards," dated February 2012 (PI report) and my report, "States' Taxpayers Cannot Afford Common Core Standards," by Henry W. Burke, dated 10.15.12 (Burke report).  These are the links to the reports:

http://www.pioneerinstitute.org/pdf/120222_CCSSICost.pdf

http://educationviews.org/states-taxpayers-cannot-afford-common-core-standards/

I also wrote a companion report applicable to the states that did not adopt the Common Core Standards, "Non-Common Core States Will Save Millions of Dollars," by Henry W. Burke, 10.18.12:

http://educationviews.org/non-common-core-states-will-save-millions-of-dollars/

Indiana gave up very good state standards to adopt the inferior Common Core Standards.  According to a 2010 Fordham Institute report that compared the state standards with the Common Core Standards, Indiana had "Clearly Superior" English Language Arts standards and "Too Close to Call" Math standards.

I encourage you to realistically evaluate the costs versus the benefits for the State of Indiana.  I will focus only on the cost of implementing the Common Core Standards (CCS) versus the dollar awards received from the federal government.  (Because Indiana received no federal RTTT awards, the benefit was zero.)

I thought I would offer a little insight into the CCS implementation costs.  This explanation includes the Pioneer report figures and my assumptions.  Obviously, I cannot speak for the Pioneer Institute nor its partners in the white paper, Accountability Works and Pacific Research Institute.  These are strictly my thoughts, assumptions and calculations.

The Pioneer Institute report identified four cost categories for CCS implementation.  The categories are: Testing, Professional Development, Textbooks, and Technology.  Pioneer calculated the total CCS implementation cost over a 7-year time period. 

 The PI report included bar graphs (without dollar figures) for each state in Professional Development, Textbooks, and Technology.  The Appendices to the PI report showed exact dollar figures for each state in only the Textbooks and Technology categories.  This is the link to the Pioneer Institute Appendices:

http://www.accountabilityworks.org/photos/Appendices.Common_Core_Cost.AW.pdf

Consequently, I had to derive figures for Testing and Professional Development for each of the 46 states.  My goal was to duplicate the Pioneer figures as closely as possible.  My nationwide totals for the four categories agree quite closely with the Pioneer Institute report. 

A.  Indiana CCS Loss

The State of Indiana submitted a proposal to the U.S. Department of Education (USDOE) for Phase 1 of the Race to the Top (RTTT) program and received a Rank of No. 23 in that competition.  Indiana obtained zero dollars in Phase 1 and Phase 2 of RTTT.  (Indiana did not submit a proposal for Phase 2.)  The 12 "winning" states under Phase 1 and Phase 2 of RTTT received a total of $3.94 billion.  In subsequent competitions, Indiana received no funds for competitive stimulus awards.

In the Burke Table 1, CCS Loss Per State, the CCS Total Cost for Indiana is $386.623 million; and the federal competitive award total is $0.  The difference is $386.623 million.

[$386.623 million - $0 million = $386.623 million]

This means Indiana will have to find $387 million to pay for the implementation expense of CCS.

B.  Indiana CCS Cost

In Table 2, CCS Cost Per Student, we can see that Indiana has a CCS Cost per Student of $369.  This is slightly below the average cost per student of $379 (average cost for the 46 CCS states).

Table 3, Total CCS Cost, lists the components making up the Total CCS Cost of $386.623 million for Indiana.  Testing cost is $31.062 million; Professional Development cost is $120.220 million; Textbook cost is $62.427 million; and Technology cost is $172.914 million.

In round numbers, Indiana will spend $31 million on Testing, $120 million on Professional Development, $63 million on Textbooks, and $173 million on Technology.  The Total CCS Cost for Washington will be $387 million.

Explanation of Figures

1.  Testing -- Testing is a function of the number of students tested.  Table 5 in my report shows the Total Nationwide Cost for the 46 CCS states.  My Table 5 duplicates Pioneer Figure 2B (on page 2 of the PI report).  Figure 2B shows a Total Testing Cost of $1,240,641,297. 

Table 6 (Burke report) lists the number of students and teachers in each of the 46 states; the total for the 46 states is 41,805,062 students.  I obtained all of the numbers in Table 6 from the Pioneer report Appendices (NCES: 2009 - 2010 School Year). 

When I divided $1,240,641,297 by 41,805,062 students, I obtained a factor of $29.67681993 per student.  This Testing cost factor was applied to each of the 46 states to get the Testing cost for each state.  My Total Testing Cost of $1,240.641 million agrees with the Pioneer Figure 2B number.

Indiana has a total student enrollment of 1,046,661 students.  When I multiplied 1,046,661 students by the $29.6768 factor per student, I obtained $31.062 million.

[1,046,661 students  x  $29.67681993 per student = $31,061,570]

2.  Professional Development -- The purpose of Professional Development is to train the teachers on the new Common Core academic standards.  Professional Development is a function of the number of teachers that must be trained.  Pioneer used a Professional Development cost of $1,931 per teacher.

Indiana has 62,258 teachers.  When I multiplied 62,258 teachers by $1,931 per teacher, I obtained $120.220 million.

[53,448 teachers  x  $1,931 per teacher = $120,220,198]

Incidentally, my calculations produced a Professional Development Cost for California of $605.938 million.  The PI report bar graph showed the number $606 million for California.  This verifies that my calculation assumptions and methodology are correct.

3.  Textbooks -- I obtained the Textbook cost for Indiana directly from the Pioneer Institute Appendix.  The Table in the Appendix showed a Total Textbook Cost for Indiana of $62,426,988 ($62.427 million).

The PI Appendix listed the following numbers for Textbooks and Instructional Materials:

IndianaTextbook Cost

(Millions of Dollars)

Grade	Textbook Cost ($ Millions)
K	5.600
1	5.339
2	4.327
3	4.575
4	4.027
5	3.970
6	4.607
Subtotal -- K - 6	32.445
7	4.747
8	4.896
9	5.244
Subtotal -- 7 - 9	14.887
10	5.006
11	5.303
12	4.786
Subtotal -- 10 - 12	15.095
Total -- K - 12	62.427

4.  Technology -- I obtained the Technology cost for Indiana directly from the Pioneer Appendix.  The PI Appendix lists the Total Technology Cost for Indiana as $172,914,317 ($172.914 million).

The PI Appendix provides the following information:

Indiana Technology Cost 

(Millions of Dollars)

Description	Technology Cost ($ Millions)	Total Technology Cost ($ Millions)
One-Time Costs	70.010	70.010
Year 1 Operations	8.887	8.887
Years 2 - 7 Operations (Annual)	15.6695	--
Total for 6 Years (Years 2 - 7)	94.017	94.017
Total Technology Cost		172.914

Please contact me if you would like copies of my two reports.

Henry W. Burke 

E-mail: hwburke@cox.net