INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -
Lawmakers, educators and teachers’ unions all seem to agree: Indiana’s
standardized ISTEP student exam is a flawed way of measuring student
performance.
Many teachers and
educators have long had reservations about the test, which has been
administered to Indiana students since the late 1980s. But Republican Gov.
Mike Pence and GOP lawmakers only recently got on board with plans to ditch
the test, which came after they dropped national Common Core standards,
resulting in last-minute changes made to state education policy that led to
widespread problems with the 2015 ISTEP exam.
As legislation to
eliminate the ISTEP moves forward, what remains to be determined is how
students will be tested in the future, how to ensure a replacement exam will
be fair and what impact the new federal education law will have.
DEATH OF THE ISTEP
Republican
lawmakers have recently used terms like “disaster” and “mess” to describe
the 2015 ISTEP exam, which was developed in a matter of months by CTB/McGraw-Hill,
a testing vendor the state has since fired.
“We test too much
in Indiana and we ought to let our teachers teach,” Pence said.
Key GOP lawmakers
in the House and Senate support a provision that would eliminate the test by
July 2017, though final details need to be worked out.
A bill passed by
the Senate would create a 22-member panel of academic experts, teachers and
administrators tasked with finding ways to reduce the testing costs,
increase “fairness to schools, teachers and students” and take into account
the new federal Every Student Succeeds Act.
Democratic state
school Superintendent Glenda Ritz, who is frequently at odds with Pence, and
her teachers’ union allies say they are pleased to see Republicans adopt an
argument they have long been making, but remain cautious.
Ritz spokesman
Daniel Altman said that for the task force to succeed, it needs to focus on
“an education agenda rather than a political one.”
TESTING FATIGUE
The ISTEP exam has
undergone major changes in recent years as federal and state education
overhauls have resulted in higher-stakes tests that use student performance
to determine school grades and teacher performance pay.
Intended to improve
education quality, the constantly evolving standards for students and
educators have contributed to a sense of testing fatigue that even advocates
of the school accountability requirements acknowledge.
“You got freshmen
in high school who have had three sets of standards since they started
kindergarten,” said Teresa Meredith, union president of the Indiana State
Teachers Association.
Academic standards
adopted in 2006 were dropped in 2010 for national Common Core math and
English standards. But in 2014, GOP lawmakers, led by Pence, cut Common Core
loose after conservative critics said the national benchmarks, which
describe what students should know after completing each grade, amounted to
a federal takeover of education.
Indiana-specific
standards were then rushed into place for 2015 test, and students across the
state performed poorly.
Senate Minority
Leader Tim Lanane, of Anderson, said the GOP needs to stop tinkering and
leave one education policy in place “for enough time to make sure it’s
working and the educators are satisfied that it’s a tool that is effective.”
FEDERAL STANDARDS
The Every Student
Succeeds Act was signed into law by President Barack Obama in December and
is meant to give all states more flexibility in testing than the previous
program, No Child Left Behind.
Pence said the new
act provides an opportunity to “reconsider the ISTEP test and take a step
back” to look for “ways we can do testing better.” The state’s new task
force must report its findings, with the new federal act in mind, to
lawmakers by December.
House Education
Committee Chairman Bob Behning, an Indianapolis Republican, says he would
like to see less rigidity in the next standardized exam.
“Let’s provide some
more flexibility to move kids forward based on their skill level,” he said,
adding, “we’re so tied to saying every kid is (a certain) level.”