Greene County superintendents express concern about ISTEP replacement

To the Editor:

Our area is fortunate to have five school corporations providing the best in education to the nearly 5,000 students in Greene County. While we are each proud of our own identities, we share many commonalities as Indiana public schools.

In the spring of 2019, Indiana public school students in grades 3 through 8 completed the new state standardized assessment ILEARN (Indiana Learning Evaluation Assessment Readiness Network). The results have recently been released to schools and will soon be released to the public.

As we have reviewed the results, our initial concerns about the new assessment have been realized. ILEARN replaced ISTEP+ as Indiana’s state assessment to be used to determine student achievement scores, as well as teacher and school accountability scores. While the assessment is a change to the familiar ISTEP+ format, we expected there would be a learning curve for both those who administer and those who take the test. However, the transition to ILEARN will have greater implications than expected to the institution of public schools. This is due to the practices used during this inaugural test.

While the ISTEP+ assessment was paired with a blueprint for teachers, there was unclear guidance on what the ILEARN would cover at each grade/subject level. Item samplers were made available to teachers just shortly before the assessment, allowing minimal time to review the method of testing. The ILEARN assessment included materials the students had very little exposure to.

The parent/school administration rescore window was opened July 15 and closed July 30 with the statement ‘parents must visit the school to view scores.’ Scores were not released until Aug. 16; therefore, there were no scores to view and no way to determine whether or not a student’s test should even be rescored.

The Indiana State Board of Education did not approve final cut scores well after the assessment on July 25, 2019. These pass/fail scores were set at a much higher level than previous assessments.

A formula has been developed which claims, even though there is no common baseline data point, to find a growth score for students when comparing the 2018 ISTEP+ test to the 2019 ILEARN assessment. This formula will be used to determine student growth scores and teacher Individual Growth Measures.

As a result of these practices, most public schools in Indiana will see significantly lower standardized assessment scores than in years past. While these scores are based on faulty testing practices, the focus will be on teachers and schools and the perception that public schools in Indiana are not providing the quality education every student deserves. This is far from the truth.

The implications for our students include an inaccurate representation of their achievement and growth over the last school year. On its own, this could result in students being placed in remedial programming when it is unnecessary. To combat this, our schools use multiple measures in determining the academic progress, growth, and placement of our students, which include authentic assessments, performance, growth goals, and anecdotal records.

None of our schools shy aware from accountability. We understand our legislators believe in the school letter grade system, however flawed we believe that system to be. As new state mandates are forced upon us, we do and we will continue to comply.

It is our teachers who carry the burden of the flawed system of assessment and accountability. Teachers in grades 3-8 will receive an Individual Growth Measure (IGM) score which, by state statute, must be used to ‘significantly inform the evaluation’. This score could adversely impact their compensation, influencing some to leave the profession and perpetuate the increasing teacher shortage.

Our teachers work diligently every day to provide quality instruction to our students. The education profession has been devalued over the past several years by political antics. Whether that was the intent of legislative decisions or not, it has been the result.

As a collective group, the stakeholders of Greene County can make a difference for our students, our schools, and our teachers. We ask that you contact your Indiana legislators, listed below, and demand the following:

• Provide teachers and administrators an adequate amount of time to review the new ILEARN assessment so they can make the appropriate adjustments in curriculum and instruction.

• Prevent the current ILEARN scores from adversely impacting Indiana public school teachers.

• Pause the accountability requirements of grading school districts based, in part, on the current ILEARN scores.

• Cease the practice of changing public education metrics and requirements on a regular basis.

Senator Eric Bassler h62@iga.in.gov

Senator James Buck Senator.Buck@iga.in.gov

Representative Bruce Borders brenda.holmes@iga.in.gov

Representative Anthony Cook h32@iga.in.gov

Representative Jeff Ellington h62@iga.in.gov

One test on one day does not define the students, teachers, or schools of Greene County. Bloomfield, Eastern Greene, Linton-Stockton, Shakamak, and White River Valley all focus on researched-based practices that encompass the needs of the whole child. We are grateful our community puts trust in our respective schools by choosing to place their children in our care.

Respectfully,

Mr. Jeffrey Gibboney, Superintendent Bloomfield SChool District

Dr. Carrie Milner, Interim Superintendent Eastern Greene Schools

Dr. Kathy Goad, Linton-Stockton School Corporation

Mr. Daniel Noel, MSD Shakamak

Dr. Robert Hacker, white River Valley School District