Teachers are relying on their own assessments and other schoolwide tests to see what students need a little extra help or to be more challenged.
School officials are calling the scores from last year’s standardized ISTEP exam not credible and not useful. And, since the scores are coming out months after the school year began, they have turned to other assessments to help them measure where students stand this year.
The latest ISTEP scores came out this week, and the numbers are across the board, with some school districts making slight gains and losses in different areas, compared to the prior year. Only a handful of local schools had a passing rate of more than 80 percent on any section of the exam, a big drop from two years ago, when most schools had passing rates of 80 to 90 percent.
The ISTEP exam is given to students in third through eighth grades annually, but last year’s exam was a revamped version that was more difficult. Scores across the state dropped, and this year, those scores didn’t rebound much. Statewide, scores dropped slightly in both reading and math sections, and 52 percent of students passed both sections of the exam, compared to 54 percent the prior year.
At the same time, a state committee is working on a proposal to replace the ISTEP, which is set to go before lawmakers in next year’s legislative session.
Superintendents across the state have once again asked lawmakers to set aside the new ISTEP scores and not consider them for schools’ A through F letter grades, for example, while a new system is being developed, Franklin Schools Superintendent David Clendening said
The most recent scores come from an exam that was given by a different vendor and rushed, with schools having little time to prepare for changes in standards and what students would be tested on or addressing any shortfalls from the prior year’s test, local school superintendents said.
“It’s just not a useful assessment,” Clendening said. “It is what it is. Let’s continue to move forward.”
Clendening would rather see the state use an assessment similar to one several schools use now that measures individual achievement by students throughout the course of the school year, rather than a once-a-year test such as ISTEP, he said.
The ISTEP exam isn’t useful in measuring how schools and students are actually doing, Clendening said. For example, Needham Elementary School was one of the highest gaining schools in central Indiana three years ago, and this year dropped again, with only 61 percent of students passing both sections of the ISTEP exam, he said.
Teachers are still working one-on-one and in small groups with students, doing interventions where needed and focusing on key areas where students can make improvements, so scores should have gone up, Clendening said. And in other assessments, student scores have gone up, he said.
But what assessment you believe seems to depend on whether someone finds the public school system to be working effectively, Clendening said.
“Public education is working,” he said.
Greenwood Schools Superintendent Kent DeKoninck sent out a letter to the community, saying he puts little credibility in the ISTEP scores and is frustrated that the state seems no closer to fixing the statewide testing system.
The new scores have no patterns and are perplexing to analyze, he said. They also are not credible, since it was a different test with a different target, and schools had continued issues with taking the exam online, he said.
At the same time, schools had little time to make any adjustments based on the prior year’s scores and were rushing to implement new standards that students would be tested on, said Lisa Harkness, director of curriculum for Greenwood schools.
School officials are still using the data to make improvements, especially in math, since those passing rates were lower than officials want, along with the passing rates of schools across the state, DeKoninck said.
But they have also been using other assessments and data to work on those areas, since the ISTEP scores are coming months late, he said.
“We are not using it for as much of a teaching tool as we do with what we do on a daily basis. But it is another marker for us to see where need to do things differently,” he said.
Despite being frustrated changes in the exam for the second year in a row, Indian Creek schools still are looking at the ISTEP data for areas to improve, Superintendent Tim Edsell said.
They saw improvements in some areas, but really are aiming to have 80 percent or more of students passing the test, he said.
“We are not at the level we want to be,” he said.
But he also agrees that the test needs to be changed and would rather see it be similar to other assessments schools already use that measures students throughout the year, rather than with a one-time test, he said.
Center Grove assistant superintendent of teaching and learning Jack Parker is looking forward to when the state has a new test and schools can begin establishing a new baseline and then working to continually improve, he said.
He wants a new assessment that aligns with state standards but also one that works well, both for students taking it and with schools’ technology, he said.
“It needs to be correct, it needs to ask the right questions and it needs to function well,” Parker said.
