Policy Update: Indiana: Getting Tough

Vital Statistics
292	Public school districts
1,868	Public schools
989,000	K-12 enrollment
14.6%	Minority students
14%	Children in poverty
14%	Students with disabilities
$6.0 billion	Annual K-12 expenditures (all revenue sources)

While 70 percent of sophomores passed the English/language arts part of the test and 58 percent passed the mathematics portion, only 54 percent of students passed both sections of the test, called Indiana Statewide Testing for Educational Progress, or ISTEP-Plus.

"This is a new, higher-order-thinking test, not a simple multiple-choice test," says Pat Pritchett, the superintendent of the 43,000-student Indianapolis district.

While Pritchett says superintendents around the state have supported the test, he adds that the initiative has raised some issues that need to be resolved on the state level.

Pritchett says he is particularly concerned about whether his district will have enough money for remedial programs, especially to operate summer school for all the students who didn't pass the graduation test, in addition to other students.

In the Indianapolis school system, only 21 percent of students passed both parts of the test in fall 1997.

Connie Blackketter, the chairwoman of the standards committee of the state school board, agrees that a lack of money for remedial help to students is one weakness in the state's overall accountability plan.

The state education department has published remediation guides for math and English teachers, and Democratic Gov. Frank L. O'Bannon has set aside $5 million in administrative funds to cover remediation for students who were tested in 1997-98--the Class of 2000.

The governor turned to that money after the legislature turned down his request to allocate additional remediation funds for fiscal 1999.

Another issue the test has raised is how Indiana will include special education students in its large-scale assessments, something that is mandated by the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, starting in 2000.

The state is piloting this school year an alternative test for special education students that would put Indiana in compliance with the IDEA.

In a move designed to ensure that all students are challenged academically in school, the state school board last year decided to eliminate general-track courses in mathematics and science.

Traditionally, such courses have provided what amount to watered-down versions of the math and science curricula that college-bound students tend to follow.

General-math courses were abandoned in the 1998-99 school year; general science will be eliminated in 1999-2000.

"The thinking was we should not give high school credit for courses that repeat work at the middle and junior high school level," explains Jeff Zaring, the state school board administrator for the education department.

He adds that schools will continue to provide courses in basic skills, but won't offer high school credit for such study.

The scores for Indiana students on the SAT college- entrance examination have steadily improved since 1995. Indiana SAT scores were 6 points higher in 1998 than in 1997.

The average scores increased 3 points, to 500, on the math section and 3 points, to 497, on the verbal section of the test.

The state did not participate in the National Assessment of Educational Progress in the 1997-98 school year.

Indiana has also taken a leading role among states in setting academic standards.

A report released last July by the Washington-based Thomas B. Fordham Foundation ranks Indiana fourth among states in the quality of its standards across all subjects. However, a report released last fall by the American Federation of Teachers said the state's language arts and social studies standards could be more clear and specific.

The state's science standards were revised in 1998, and new science and health books aligned with the standards will be available in July of this year.

Last summer, the state made available new math textbooks aligned with math standards that were revised in 1997.

The education department also had plans to revise its language arts standards in 1998.

"We understand they need work," says Mary Tiede Wilhelmus, the director of communications for the department. "They're not as clear as they need to be."

Little happened by way of school funding legislation this past year, as the 1999 budget was passed in 1997 as part of a two-year budget.

Responding to a recommendation by the state board, the legislature enacted last year a law giving districts the option of passing along to individual students the money districts receive for each student who earns an academic-honors diploma.

Districts could give each student a cash award of $800 instead of keeping the money for their own budgets.

State officials were aware of only two districts--Frankfort and Hammond--that took advantage of the new provision in 1998. Districts could give students such awards retroactively beginning with the Class of 1997.

Under legislation passed in 1995 that became effective last fall, schools were required to publish in their local newspapers certain benchmarks of their performance, including attendance records, standardized-test results, and graduation rates.

While schools can add their own information, the benchmarks come from the state's annual school report card.

In the past, schools merely needed to publish information in the legal-notices part of the newspaper, a section typically not widely read. Moreover, the measures reported previously were not uniform on a statewide basis.

State education officials say they are working hard to create a statewide system for school accountability.

"We want the curriculum and the standards and the testing to all flow together," Blackketter, the standards-committee chairwoman, says. "We don't think we're there yet."