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A new school year has begun, bringing with it a sense of optimism. It also serves as a reminder of the challenges we face in increasing academic outcomes to ensure every student in Marion County is on track to graduate from high school and transition successfully to college and careers.
Student academic proficiency levels in the United States—including in Indiana—were worrisome before the pandemic and have been severely impacted by COVID-19. Nationwide, 2023 math and reading scores for U.S. 13-year-olds hit the lowest levels in decades. Just 30.6% of Indiana students in grades 3-8 scored proficient on both the math and English portions of the 2023 ILEARN, Indiana’s K-8 assessment. This is essentially flat when compared with 2022 (30.2%).
High school students scored similarly. Only 28.5% of Indiana’s 11th-graders met the college-readiness benchmarks this year on the SAT, which has been a required test for juniors since 2022.
Even more concerning are the disparities when looking at test scores by race and ethnicity. Results from the 2023 ILEARN show white students were more than three times as likely to achieve proficiency in English and math as Black students, and more than twice as likely as Hispanic students. Similarly, 2023 SAT data show that, in 11th grade, 34.3% of white students met benchmarks, compared with just 8.1% of Black students and 14.3% of Hispanic students.
Helping students catch up to pre-pandemic levels and then continue to progress will take years of concentrated, coordinated effort—from students, families, educators, community-based organizations and more. To help galvanize action and ensure Marion County students are making good progress, we need to establish a community-wide goal for increased academic proficiency levels. We also need to regularly track and assess the progress being made so we can adjust course as needed.
The Indiana Department of Education recently developed the Indiana Graduates Prepared to Succeed Dashboard. The GPS, which displays comprehensive school-level data, allows users to evaluate student progress at the school and district levels. The Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation, where I work, developed a Marion County dashboard called the Community Data Snapshot. The CDS is helpful for comparing schools, districts and types of schools (e.g., traditional public compared to public charter) within Marion County. Together, the GPS and the CDS provide the transparency our community needs to understand how our students are faring.
When it comes to setting a community-wide goal, Indianapolis can look to the example of SA2020 in San Antonio, Texas. SA2020 is a not-for-profit entity that evolved from a 2010 community visioning process. It was established to drive progress toward that vision by collecting, analyzing and reporting on 30 community-level indicators identified by San Antonians. Having an entity whose sole purpose is to maintain focus on a community-wide vision and communicate both progress and setbacks has enabled San Antonio’s community leaders to focus their resources in pursuit of shared goals.
Indianapolis could follow San Antonio’s example by coming together as a community and setting a bold goal for raising student academic achievement outcomes. The combination of a shared goal and the ability to track outcomes transparently would enable schools, community-based organizations, employers and others to focus resources where they are most needed—ultimately helping more students succeed.
A new school year has begun. We must set a bold goal for raising student academic achievement in Marion County and work collaboratively to help make this goal a reality.•
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Fiddian-Green is president and CEO of the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation, whose mission is to advance the vitality of Indianapolis and the well-being of its people. Send comments to ibjedit@ibj.com.
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