The panel that is re-writing the ISTEP+ met for the first time Tuesday. (David Hartman /Flickr)
The committee created by lawmakers to rewrite Indiana’s standardized assessment, the ISTEP, met for the first time Tuesday.
No decisions were made, yet it became clear to the educators, policymakers and lawmakers gathered that a vast amount of work lies ahead before their deadline just six months away.
One major decision is whether a single summative test or multiple interim assessments should be used to measure how much a student knows and learned from the previous year.
University of Kansas testing expert Marianne Perie told the panel before they even decide that, they need to agree on the purpose of the exam. Is it to identity achievement gaps and help students? Or provide instructional feedback to teachers and parents? Will lawmakers use it to compare schools to make policies? Could teachers be evaluated by a student’s score?
“What is the number one goal this assessment has to have?,” she said. “If this taskforce doesn’t agree on that. It won’t agree on anything else.”
Legislation passed this year requires the 23-member committee to report its recommendations for a new assessment by Dec. 1. The report is supposed to guide lawmakers during the 2017 legislative session on approving a new assessment - one that could be built from scratch just for Indiana or be a so-called “off-the-shelf” model used by other states.
Testing company Pearson is under contract with Indiana to give the current ISTEP in 2017. The new assessment, as approved by the committee, is go into effect in spring 2018.
But the looming deadline is already causing state Rep. Bob Behning to suggest tweaking the law that repealed ISTEP to allow its use for one or two more years.
“There’s probably a pretty good chance that we will extend the contract with Pearson for another year or two, until we get what we want, to do it right,” he said after leaving the committee meeting.
Superintendent Glenda Ritz said the timeline to design the assessments will become more clear after the committee decides on key factors — such as the purpose and then the type.
“There will be a conversation of what assessments we do want, and can we achieve the (third grade) I-READ information in the new system,” she said.
Whether social students is part of the ISTEP could also be discussed, Ritz said, since an assessment of subject is no longer required by federal policy.
“The cool thing about this whole operation is we really get to design the whole system,” she said.
Tuesday’s meeting was mostly a summary of the types of testing, the current state of Indiana’s assessments, including ISTEP and the third grade reading test know as I-READ, and a review of the new federal Every Student Succeeds Act, or ESSA, that replaced No Child Left Behind.
The panel’s recommendation on the new assessment system is due Dec. 1. The next meeting date has not been released.
Gary Community Schools continue to struggle financially to pay teachers and keep buildings open. (photo credit: Rachel Morello/Indiana Public Broadcasting)
For the school district in the northwest Indiana city, budget woes are nothing new.
At the beginning of the school year, we visited Gary Community Schools to see how the financial and academic struggles of the district were affecting learning — and how district officials are optimistic the schools can survive.
The series, Community of Opportunity, explored the community and district at the beginning of the 2015-2016 school year. On-the-ground and in-the-schools, reporter Rachel Morello laid out the following issues:
The Gary Community School Corporation does need to get better. Student test scores are low, schools are closing. The district is in debt to the tune of roughly $20 million dollars. In addition, the growth of the state’s voucher program and proliferation of the charter school movement have hit the public school district hard. At one time, Gary had a greater percentage of charter schools than any other district in the nation. District leaders estimate about 3,000 kids have left GCSC for other local schools in the past two or three years. To top it all off, many of the statewide policies put in place in Indianapolis in recent years don’t play out so favorably for Gary. The General Assembly approved a new school funding formula that will short GCSC $9 million over the next two years.
School staff and community members expressed hope the schools, and the community in Gary, could turn around to overcome these woes. Continue Reading →
Some Indiana lawmakers are pushing back against the White House guidance that public schools allow transgender students to use bathrooms that match their gender identity. (Pixabay)
The Obama administration guidelines that say schools must allow transgender students equal access to bathrooms has come under fire in a federal bill proposed by an Indiana congressman.
Indiana Rep. Luke Messer, R-6th Districts, introduced federal legislation Wednesday that would block the Obama administration directive. He says rules regarding bathroom access should originate locally.
“It’s irresponsible for the Obama Administration to begin this social experiment in the bathrooms of our nation’s elementary schools,” said Messer, in a statement. “Decisions of this magnitude should be made at the state and local level by people who will put the interest of our kids ahead of political ideology.”
But across Indiana, lawmakers search for answers of their own. For state Rep. Ed Delaney, D-Indianapolis, the idea of transgender students is nothing new.
“People have been able to deal with it and they can deal with it,” said Delaney, in a phone interview.
He says Messer’s bill, and similar backlash against transgender students’ rights, are “unnecessary.”
“I don’t think there’s a lot or people trying to encourage people to masquerade in restrooms,” said Delaney. “We’re creating a lot of fear when there’s no reason for any fear.”
Other lawmakers like state senator Travis Holdman, R-Markle, agree with Messer that decisions should be made locally.
“Whoever owns the bathroom sets the rules for the bathroom,” said Holdman. “The last place we need the government intruding is in our toilets, OK?”
Holdman sponsored legislation last year that would require transgender people to live as their preferred gender identity for a year or produce evidence, like a doctor’s note, that he or she is actually transgender, before filing a discrimination complaint.
[pullquote]”The last place we need the government intruding is in our toilets, OK?”[/pullquote]
“We’d like to be able to accept the word of students but we know that students are up to a little bit of chaos sometimes,” said Holdman.
State superintendent Glenda Ritz applauded the Obama administration’s measures last week. Officials from Indianapolis Public Schools, the state’s largest school district, said they believe the administration’s guidelines “echoed” their own beliefs.
But Holdman is not the only state lawmaker that disagrees with Ritz and IPS officials.
“These new federal guidelines concerning the use of school restrooms and locker rooms is another example of extreme overreach by the Obama administration,” said House Speaker Brian C. Bosma, R-Indianapolis. “I fully support Congressman Luke Messer’s move to block these rules and keep these decisions at the state and local level where they belong.”
Other national Indiana figures have chimed in too. Lauren Beebe, a spokesperson for Indiana Rep. Todd Young, R-9th District, said he believes decisions at local schools should be made by local leaders, not the federal government.
“In the past he’s opposed heavy-handed federal mandates on the states,” said Beebe, in an email.
Senator Dan Coats, R-Indiana, also criticized the new guidelines.
“This announcement violates the Constitution and is based on politics, not what is best for our students,” said Coats, in a statement. “Washington bureaucrats do not have the authority to dictate restroom policies at Indiana schools.”
Coats was among a group of 25 senators who sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch and U.S. Secretary of Education John King decrying the directive.
Researchers say this may stem from cultural perceptions.
“Expressions of learning are different in some ways,” said Jill Nicholson-Crotty, an Indiana University professor and study author. “And if you grew up similarly, you’re going to recognize those.”
According to the study, black teachers’ perceptions of black students are more positive than white teachers perceptions — and these perceptions drive assignment differences.
While gifted education programs may admit students based on IQ tests or other measures of ability, it’s often up to teachers to choose which students get evaluated in the first place.
Nicholson-Crotty said teachers usually determine that based on key questions.
“Are they kids that dig deeply into prolems? Are they problem solving in ways that are far advanced of their age group?,” said Nicholson-Crotty.
She says the data points to one thing.
“Black teachers are better at spotting these skills and these traits in black students,” said Nicholson-Crotty.
‘We Really Need More Diversity In Schools’
Nicholson-Crotty and other researchers analyzed a national sampling of student data. They looked at students referred to various gifted programs by third- and fourth-grades.
The results suggest that black teachers are more likely than white teachers to see black students as gifted — and not that students or their parents are doing anything differently.
For instance, the study found that black students didn’t perform better on standardized tests or other cognitive measures if they have black teachers. Nor that parents of black students were any more likely to engage with black teachers or lobby that their children be in honors classes.
“One of the takewaways from this for us is that we really need more diversity in schools because then you increase the likelihood of a black student having a black teacher in these sort of K, one, two, three grades,” said Nicholson-Crotty. “It might be very important for that to happen.
Real Life Effects
The study could explain an all-too-evident practice in my Rochester, NY high school.
The inner-city public high school‘s student body was pretty diverse. But walk into one of the school’s honors classes, and you wouldn’t necessarily know it.
Currently, about three-quarters of the student body is black Latino and about one-quarter white, according to state data.
But almost the complete inverse was true in our school’s honors and AP classes. In these classes sat kids who came up through elementary and middle school programs for gifted students. And, in a school of mostly black and Latino students, these honors classes were overwhelmingly white.
And that trend isn’t isolated.
Black and Latino students make up 37 percent of high school students, but only 27 percent of students enrolled in at least one AP course, according to the Education Department.
Undocumented students from Indiana can apply for a scholarship to attend school at universities in Delaware and Connecticut. Indiana is one of many states that charge undocumented student out of state tuition, no matter how long they have lived in a state. (Photo Credit: chancadoodle/Flickr)
A national scholarship foundation will offer a $20,000 a year scholarship to undocumented students in Indiana to attend college in Delaware or Connecticut. They say Indiana policy restricts college access for undocumented students.
According to the Indiana Latino Institute, there are an estimated 300-400 undocumented students that graduate from Indiana high schools each year. Marlene Dotson, president of the Indiana Latino Institute, says these students face a lot of challenges if they want to attend college.
“There are very few options,” Dotson says. “First because they don’t qualify for federal aid because of their legal status. Undocumented students have to look for private scholarships to help their financial needs or tuition.”
TheDream.US is a privately funded scholarship organization that helps undocumented students fund their college education. This specific scholarship will give 500 students in 15 states $20,000 a year to attend Eastern Connecticut State or Delaware State universities – where these students can cover the cost of attending with the entire scholarship. Continue Reading →
The Inside Out class at Indianapolis Re-entry Educational Facility meets. The class is part of an international program that brings college students and incarcerated people together to learn. (Peter Balonon-Rosen/Indiana Public Broadcasting)
INDIANAPOLIS — To get to the classroom inside Indianapolis Re-entry Educational Facility, IREF, you go through a metal detector, a set of locked doors and across a long, open yard.
Behind another set of doors, class is in session.
Sitting in a circle, students discuss their designs of an ideal facility that helps incarcerated people transition back into society. They’re working on their final project for this class, held behind bars, on the criminal justice system.
The class is part of the international Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program, a program that brings college students and incarcerated people together with one goal: learning.
Here, half of the students are “inside students,” people incarcerated here at IREF. The other half are “outside students,” college students from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.
Together, they’re inside and out. Inside-Out.
“I’m the most talkative person in the class actually,” Dariek says, with a laugh.
Dariek’s currently incarcerated, but being released soon, so we aren’t using his last name.
“Man, this is best thing that has happened to me in the entire 18 years I have been incarcerated,” Dariek says. “I went to college in prison but I didn’t experience the college thing, like with the students.”
Dariek speaks to his Inside-Out classmates. (Peter Balonon-Rosen/Indiana Public Broadcasting)
In the early 2000s, Indiana had one of the largest college degree programs for incarcerated adults, by percentage, in the nation. People inside Indiana prisons received about 1,000 degrees a year.
In 2010, much of that began to be phased out. A 2011 law restricted state funding for college programs.
“We had up to 400 college professors going into prisons everyday to teach college programs,” says John Nally, Indiana Department of Correction education director.
Nally says prison education now focuses primarily on job-training and GED programs.
“You know, we like to say we’re training Indiana’s future workforce,” he says.
But some worry this is turning Indiana prisons into “intellectual deserts.” Continue Reading →
In this 2011 photo, students at Washington-Lee High School in Arlington, VA select their breakfast. A proposed congressional bill would tighten eligibility requirements for free- and reduced-school meals. (USDA/Flickr)
UPDATE The House Education and Workforce Committee approves the proposed bill — the Improving Child Nutrition and Education Act — which would change the federal school lunch program to ease nutrition standards and make it harder for schools to offer free meals schoolwide. The Republican-controlled panel said the change would better allocate limited resources, the IndyStar reports.
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — A new bill in Congress aims to make it harder for students across the country to get free lunches. If the bill is passed, 120 Indiana schools with about 60,000 students would no longer be eligible to participate in the federal schoolwide lunch program.
The bill introduced by Tea Party Republican Todd Rokita, who represents Indiana’s 4th district, would tighten eligibility requirements that allow high-poverty schools to take full advantage of free and reduced lunch programs. If passed, it would decrease the number of schools that can provide free meals to needy students.
Rokita and supporters say the bill would help cut down on waste, fraud and abuse. Critics say the bill simply makes it more difficult for millions of needy students in thousands of schools to eat.
Poor Kids And Hunger
In 2010, the Congress passed the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act to do something simple: make sure kids, especially poor kids, don’t go hungry.
The 2010 law improved school nutrition standards, expanded access and increased funding for free- and reduced-lunch.
It also ended certain measures that required students to prove their eligibiity for a meal.
“This created unnecessary stigma as certain students had to produce documentation in the school lunch line proving their low- or moderate-income status,” writes Olivia Barrow of the New America Foundation. “In some cases, school administrators expressed concern that poor students were simply choosing not to eat rather than be subjected to the stigma of proving that they were experiencing food insecurity.” Continue Reading →
The White House released guidance to public schools saying they must allow transgender students to use bathrooms that match their gender identity. (Pixabay)
The White House released guidance to public schools saying they must allow transgender students to use bathrooms that match their gender identity.
The guidelines issued Friday, don’t add requirements to current law, but say that schools are at risk of losing federal funds if they treat a transgender student differently from other students of the same gender identity.
The guidelines come while the federal government spars with North Carolina over laws barring transgender people from accessing bathrooms that don’t align with their biological sex.
Some Indiana school officials have already embraced the change, while others say single-user bathrooms are a better answer.
In Bloomington High School North, some of the bathrooms are gender neutral. A student’s gender when they’re taking care of business is no one else’s business, says Principal Jeff Henderson.
“We want to make sure that all of our schools are welcoming and safe environments for all of our students,” Henderson said.
While he says those new federal guidelines are nothing new at Bloomington North, he thinks they can start a conversation in the state.
“We’re hopeful here that the new guidance from the Obama administration will benefit our kids,” Henderson said.
The guidance from the Obama administration is just that – guidance. It basically says, “this is our interpretation of existing law.”
The federal guidelines make one thing clear – transgender students must be allowed to use bathrooms and locker rooms that match their current gender identity, if schools want to keep their federal funding. And schools can’t require transgender students to use individual facilities — otherwise they’re violating federal Title IX non-discrimination laws.
“Transgender women are women and transgender men are men and they should be allowed to use the facilities that correspond with their gender identity,” said Chris Paulsen, a spokesperson for Freedom Indiana.
The organization hopes to add gender identity sexual orientation to existing civil rights law right here in the state.
“This is one area where we definitely see schools leading the way,” Paulsen said.
But others say something else is happening in schools. Continue Reading →
Ayana Wilson-Coles is one of two classroom teacher on the new ISTEP+ panel that teaches a grade where students take ISTEP+. The panel is tasked with re-writing the state assessment, and meets for the first time May 24. (photo credit: Peter Balonon-Rosen/Indiana Public Broadcasting)
The new ISTEP+ panel tasked with re-writing the state assessment is established and will meet for the first time May 24. A majority of the panel’s members are teachers, principals and superintendents who have seen issues with the test first hand and want to see it change in ways that help teachers in the classroom and doesn’t marginalize certain groups of students.
As we’ve reported, legislation passed during the 2015 establishes a panel of educators, school administrators, parents, lawmakers and other stakeholders.
Legislation mandates the group must issue a report to the legislature by December. This report will guide legislative action in the 2017 session. The state’s current testing contract with Pearson expires after the 2017 administration of the test.
Of the 23 people serving on the panel, 12 are educators currently working in school districts (teachers, principals and superintendents). These educators say their goals for the re-write are informed by their work in their classrooms.
The Focus On ISTEP+ In The Classroom
One thing many educators have long criticized of the ISTEP+ is its prominence on a day to day basis in the classroom. Few teachers use it as a tool to gauge where students are academically. It’s true service is as a measuring instrument for the state, and educators have said that it looms on the minds of both teachers and students all year.
Ayana Wilson-Coles is a third grade teacher at Eagle Creek Elementary School in Pike Township. She’s one of the two members of the ISTEP+ panel that teaches a grade that takes the test.
“The second half of the school year, starting in January, we are trying to prepare our kids for the test.”
This is one of the major issues Wilson-Coles wants to address: how much she has to prioritize preparing for ISTEP+. She says during second semester she spends a lot of instruction time making sure kids are familiar with the technology, have strategies for doing well on multiple choice and understand how the time constraints will work. She says her students feel pressure to do well.
“I had a lot of kids this past year, when we took the first [installment of the] ISTEP+, break down and cry,” she says. And once they are upset, they had trouble finishing the test. “It’s not that they didn’t know what to do, I couldn’t help them, and they were frustrated and they just cried. There was nothing I could do to make them finish the test.”
And because she’s making sure the kids are prepared for the format of the test, she thinks other educational opportunities are lost. She says if the ISTEP+ didn’t have such high stakes, her classroom could be a different place.
State Superintendent Glenda Ritz reads through a report drafted by her colleagues on the 2015 Blue Ribbon Commission. (Photo Credit: Rachel Morello/StateImpact Indiana)
The Department of Education is moving forward with efforts to help with teacher recruitment and retention thanks to a $5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education.
State superintendent Glenda Ritz says the money established the Indiana Center on Teacher Quality at Indiana University, which focuses on increasing the number of qualified special education teachers in the state. The Center provides resources for scholarships for students wanting to become special education teachers and will also help facilitate professional development for these teachers.
The grant also creates a new position at the DOE that will focus on teacher attraction and retention in the state.
Ritz says this money allows the DOE to implement the recommendations made by the Blue Ribbon Commission, a group of 50 educators headed by Ritz that met a few times before the legislative session. Some of the recommendations in the report needed legislative action to go into effect, but didn’t get it.
The DOE received the grant in January, but didn’t make the official announcement until today. During the legislative session Ritz was advocating for legislation that helped fulfill some of the Blue Ribbon Commission’s recommendations.
She says this grant allows the DOE to move forward with things that don’t need legislative approval, such as establishing mentoring programs.
“We will begin talking about a framework of what makes a great mentoring program in a school for beginning teachers,” Ritz said. She also said they would like to work in tandem with universities who are educating future teachers, and will attend a summit of higher education institutions this summer.
“We’ll talk about various items whether it be clinical experiences, whether it be recruitment strategies that they’re using– making sure they have a diverse workforce.”
The Indiana Center on Teacher Quality at Indiana University has been functioning since the announcement by the grant, and is run through IU’s Center on Education and Lifelong Learning and Center on Community Living and Careers.
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