Indiana needs to improve communication between its education leaders, hire more staff and take other steps to prevent a repeat of the “thorny issues” surrounding the length of this year’s ISTEP+ exam, two consultants hired by the state say.
Two bills already have passed the Senate that push the state in the direction of a national test.
The changes are expected to shave at least three hours off the test for all grades plus an additional hour in 5th and 7th grades.
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 House Education Committee voted unanimously Tuesday to advance a bill permitting some steps that Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Glenda Ritz proposed last week.
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.
The governor announced Monday he would look for ways to curtail Indiana's revamped statewide assessment test from the up to 12½ hours it's been projected to take.
Department of Education data show the total time for administering the ISTEP+ test will more than double for all grades, topping out at 12 hours, 30 minutes for third-graders.
Senate Bill 566, authored by Sen. Luke Kenley, R-Noblesville, and Sen. Ryan Mishler, R-Bremen, would halt an effort to create a new ISTEP, instead directing the state to use a national test beginning in the 2016-17 school year.
A bill sponsored by three Republican senators calls for the State Board of Education to revise Indiana's K-12 academic standards and select a nationally recognized set of exams for testing students by July 2016.
The State of Indiana announced $30 million in grants Thursday to 1,317 schools around Indiana to reward their performance on the state standardized tests and graduation rates.
The percentage of Marion County charter schools receiving a D or an F from state regulators has spiked from 30 percent two years ago to 54 percent this year.
Rattled by new state teacher ratings, the colleges hope to avoid black eyes, themselves.
With the school year underway, teachers are still scrambling to bring themselves and their students up to speed on the state's new education standards only months before students take a revamped, high-stakes exam assessing their grasp of the new curriculum.
Indiana's largest teachers union is urging Gov. Mike Pence to support freezing the state's education accountability system for one year because of revisions to the ISTEP test being driven by the state's new academic standards.
The Flanner House Elementary charter school will close on Sept. 11 after the Indiana Department of Education found evidence of widespread cheating on the state standardized ISTEP test. The school has 176 students.
Indiana teachers and students starting the new school year will have to quickly get up to speed on the state's new academic standards, drafted only months ago to replace the national Common Core standards.
Indiana’s state schools superintendent says she has reached a $3 million settlement with CTB/McGraw-Hill after disruptions to standardized tests last year.
