A recent announcement indicates that Indiana is the first state to formally abandon the Common Core standards.

However, the news is being met with skepticism as critics of the nationalized initiative believe that the state may simply “rebrand” most of the same Common Core standards with a different label.

Dr. Susan Berry of Breitbart files this report:

“I believe when we reach the end of this process there are going to be many other states around the country that will take a hard look at the way Indiana has taken a step back, designed our own standards and done it in a way where we drew on educators, we drew on citizens, we drew on parents and developed standards that meet the needs of our people,” Pence said.

Indiana was one of the first states to adopt the Common Core standards when Mitch Daniels (R), an ardent supporter of the initiative, was governor. The state began to distance itself from the standards last year, however, when the state legislature “paused” their implementation. This year, the Republican-led legislature approved a measure that required the State Board of Education to adopt, by July 1, new college- and career-ready standards that are “the highest standards in the United States” and “maintain Indiana sovereignty.”

In addition, as Breitbart News reported on March 16, the legislation requires that the new standards must still qualify Indiana for a federal waiver from No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and align with college entrance exams. College Board president and “architect” of the Common Core standards David Coleman recently announced that the SAT will soon be aligned with the Common Core standards, a situation that suggests Hoosiers’ standards may be required to be similar to the nationalized standards to comply with the legislation.

The idea that the new Indiana standards would be very similar to the Common Core even led state Sen. Scott Schneider (R), the original author of the bill, to abandon the nationalized standards, to withdraw his name from the measure. Schneider did so at the last minute after discovering that other legislators had changed the bill to require the state to meet federal NCLB criteria so that Indiana would not lose federal funding.

The first draft of Indiana’s “own” set of academic standards was met with blunt criticism from several standards experts, namely Sandra Stotsky, Professor Emerita at University of Arkansas; Terrence Moore, Professor at Hillsdale College; Ze’ev Wurman, Hoosier Institution Fellow; and Kathleen Porter-Magee of the pro-Common Core Fordham Institute.