HANCOCK COUNTY — Fewer than half of Hancock County elementary and middle school students who took Indiana’s new high-stakes standardized exam last spring passed it, the state announced this week.
State officials told districts to expect poor scores on the ILEARN exam — a computer adaptive exam that replaced the controversial ISTEP+ last school year — prior to schools learning the scores a few weeks ago, but school officials didn’t know how far the marks would drop.
Hancock County schools’ scores were higher than the state average. Just 37.1% of Indiana students in grades 3-8 were proficient in both English/language arts and math on ILEARN; 47.9% passed English; and 47.8% passed math. The State Board of Education OK’d the test results Wednesday morning, and the scores were released to the public.
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Click here to purchase photos from this gallerySouthern Hancock led the way in the county with a 52.1% overall pass rate; Eastern Hancock had a 50.1% pass rate; Greenfield Central’s rate was at 45.9 percent; and Mt. Vernon had a rate of 43.4%. Although not comparable to test scores year-over-year, the county’s ISTEP English/math pass rates in 2018 ranged from 64.6% for Eastern Hancock to 59.6% for Greenfield-Central.
Some elementary students also took a social studies and science ILEARN exam.
ILEARN assesses more rigorous college- and career-ready standards than ISTEP+, according to the Indiana Department of Education. Because of the low scores, Jennifer McCormick, the state schools superintendent; Gov. Eric Holcomb have asked lawmakers to “hold schools harmless,” meaning the scores won’t negatively impact school A-F accountability grades and teacher evaluations.
McCormick told The Associated Press that more than half of Indiana schools would receive D or F ratings if the state allows those scores to affect the A-F yearly grades. About 15% of schools received a D of an F rating based on last year’s ISTEP. In addition to the pending hold-harmless action, which could get approved during next year’s legislative session, McCormick told media outlets she wants the board of education to review and re-establish the accountability system.
Greenfield-Central
Harold Olin, superintendent of Greenfield-Central Schools, said it wasn’t too long ago when state lawmakers held schools harmless because of a dip in ISTEP scores. In 2016, under the direction of then-Gov. Mike Pence and former Superintendent Glenda Ritz, the legislature protected teachers and schools from being hurt by low 2014-15 scores. Those were due to a change in state standards, which caused pass rates across the state to drop by about 20 percent.
But every year since, ISTEP scores across the state got worse. During that time, the state also changed test vendors, and lawmakers were working to break away from ISTEP and implement ILEARN.
Olin said the department of education did a better job giving guidance on what to expect with the ILEARN exam than they had in past years with the changes to ISTEP, but he said the “drastic” change in assessment made it difficult for teachers and administrators to know what to expect.
“I think there’s a lot of angst, at least in this office, and I’m sure the building principals and language and math teachers as well, just not knowing how our students would perform,” Olin said.
Greenfield-Central students had a pass rate of 53.9% for English and a 62.2% rate for the math section.
Olin said many of the corporation’s schools scored about 10 percentage points higher than the state average in English and about 20 percentage points or higher for math. Eden Elementary School — named a four-star school several years running — performed better than all other schools in the county with a 80.5% English proficiency rate and a 85.4% math pass rate.
“It’s hard to stay positive when you see numbers like this,” Olin said about Greenfield-Central’s ILEARN average scores, “but there certainly are some positives in here knowing that it was the first time our kids saw an assessment like this.”
Lori Katz, director of secondary education, said since ILEARN is computer-based — students used to do both computer and paper/pencil sections on ISTEP — it means the elementary and middle school students have to make sure they understand the multi-step processes and logistics of the exam. At the same time, Katz said teachers need to make sure students understand the standards.
Mt. Vernon
Mt. Vernon students had proficiency rating 57.4 % in math and 53.5 % in English.
Scott Shipley, director of curriculum at Mt. Vernon, said teachers helped prepare students for ILEARN by examining its testing blueprints and standards. Students also take tests and answer questions similar to ILEARN’s throughout the school year.
Jack Parker, Mt. Vernon superintendent, said his reaction to the corporation’s results was minimal.
“It’s a baseline,” Parker said. “And because it’s a baseline, it’s what we learn from and how we grow.”
Parker emphasized the district isn’t against accountability, assessing students’ learning or state-level assessment. He’d like to see state testing set a baseline and then be left alone for 10 years, he said.
“We’ll get to where we need to get as a school corporation, and I believe the other school corporations in the state will do the same thing,” Parker said. “ … We are not going to have that test be used to show student learning when it changes so much. And if we really want it to reflect student learning, give us time.”
To help prepare for ILEARN this school year, the Central Indiana Education Services Center is providing professional development on math and language arts to Mt. Vernon teachers, Shipley said. That will include looking at ILEARN test questions and utilizing best practices for teaching questions similar to the ones on the test.
Southern Hancock
Among the public schools, Southern Hancock had the highest English pass rate in the county — 60.8% — and the second-highest proficiency score in math at 63.8%.
Lisa Lantrip, superintendent of Southern Hancock, said the state provided much more data from ILEARN than it has in the past for the old ISTEP exam. The data shows how individual students performed in specific state standards, Lantrip said.
Southern Hancock administrators and teachers are already “digging into this data and making adjustments to our curriculum and instruction,” she said.
“Are we happy with the scores? Absolutely not,” Lantrip said. “However, this data provides us with so much more information than previous tests, which will help us improve how we teach and how our students learn.”
Eastern Hancock
Eastern Hancock led the county with a 66.7% math proficiency rate; 55.7% of students passed English. Superintendent Dave Pfaff said he wasn’t surprised at the low scores.
Pfaff said the performance of schools and teachers shouldn’t be evaluated based on performance on standardized tests, such as ILEARN or the former ISTEP. He said teachers often have a good idea of how their students will perform before they take the tests.
“They are one piece of data among hundreds or thousands of pieces of data that a teacher accumulates over the year,” he said about state standardized tests.
Having a new test also makes it harder for teachers and principals to evaluate whether their students have made progress, Pfaff said. He added that Eastern Hancock schools will begin developing strategies to help students prepare for tests in future school years.
Pfaff said the state’s recommendation to hold school districts harmless from the results makes sense in light of the fact that the test is new and letter grades can affect teacher pay.
“That’s probably a fair thing to do until we are really comfortable and confident with this test,” he said.
Other schools
Two private schools and one charter school in the county also participated in the ILEARN exams. St. Michael Catholic School students had proficiency rates of 68.1% for English, 70.3% for math and a 60.4% combined rate. Zion Lutheran School students had proficiency rates of 79.7% for English, 55.9% for math and a 54.2% combined rate. Geist Montessori Academy students had proficiency rates of 53.4% for English, 39.8% for math and a 32.6% combined rate.
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“It’s hard to stay positive when you see numbers like this, but there certainly are some positives in here knowing that it was the first time our kids saw an assessment like this.”
Harold Olin, Greenfield-Central
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“Are we happy with the scores? Absolutely not. However, this data provides us with so much more information than previous tests, which will help us improve how we teach and how our students learn.”
Lisa Lantrip, Southern Hancock
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“It’s a baseline. And because it’s a baseline, it’s what we learn from and how we grow.”
Jack Parker, Mt. Vernon
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“They are one piece of data among hundreds or thousands of pieces of data that a teacher accumulates over the year.”
Dave Pfaff, Eastern Hancock
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How students fared: A school-by-school look at the scores, Page A6
What they said: Superintendents’ reactions, Page A6
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