Indiana Senate budget leaders are proposing that changes to local school funding be phased in so that cuts faced by some urban and rural districts with shrinking enrollments will be easier to manage.
A proposal to replace ISTEP with an off-the-shelf national test was derailed Tuesday as an Indiana House committee sent the idea to a summer committee for further study.
The decision stems from a case involving the Franklin Township school district in Indianapolis, which was sued after it eliminated free bus service for the 2011-2012 school year.
Students at charter schools achieved twice as much growth on reading and math tests as similar students at local traditional public schools, according to a new study from Stanford University.
Indiana's state schools superintendent asked lawmakers Thursday to shift money that a House budget plan allocated for charter schools to public schools instead and also outlined her plan to cut the cost of student testing.
The Senate Education Committee is considering numerous pieces of education-related legislation, including a bill aimed at removing the state superintendent of public instruction as chair of the Indiana State Board of Education.
Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Glenda Ritz is blasting a state recommendation to award nearly $134 million to six vendors to develop and administer tests for state's students.
Leaders from some of Indiana's poorest school districts said Tuesday they fear proposed funding cuts they're facing, while those from growing districts are worried proposed increases for them won't be enough.
Rep. Robert Behning, who is sponsoring the measure, said: "We should not be taking bad schools and passing them off to somebody else."
Indianapolis’ hotly debated preschool program cleared its final hurdle Monday when the City-County Council approved spending $4.2 million to send 1,000 poor children to high-quality preschools later this year.
Two bills already have passed the Senate that push the state in the direction of a national test.
Indiana students might be off the hook from a proposal asking they pass a civics test to graduate from high school after a bill to require it was defeated in the state Senate on Tuesday.
Indiana school administrators say they welcome efforts to shorten the standardized test that 450,000 students soon will begin taking, but they say the exam will still take too long.
The move most likely would result in Superintendent of Public Instruction Glenda Ritz, a Democrat, being removed from the position.
IPS would see a 6-percent reduction in state tuition aid by 2017 despite being one of the state’s poorest districts, with more than 75 percent of children coming from families that are poor enough to qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.
Indiana’s schools superintendent says a plan is in the works to cut about three hours from the maximum time that students will take the state’s standardized tests.
Indiana legislative leaders said they’re prepared to ram through legislation to make the state’s ISTEP test shorter, but they won’t consider Superintendent Glenda Ritz’s proposal to pause the school grading system for one year.
“A number of schools” reported freezing issues Thursday during the test run, which was designed to ensure that the system worked smoothly when the online portion of the standardized test is given to 470,000 Indiana students in the coming weeks.
The State Board of Education will consider a proposal to suspend accountability grades and scrap portions of the ISTEP+ exam as it grapples with concerns about increased testing time for students.
Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruction Danielle Shockey said it wasn’t clear what changes could be made before the first possible day of the testing period arrives on Feb. 25.
