 January 5, 202
Most of Indiana’s more than 1,800 schools are considered to be meeting or approaching the state’s expectations, according to 2019 federal ratings released Friday.
Few schools — just 87 — rose to “exceeding expectations.†Around 200, or 11%, were not considered to be meeting standards and scored in the lowest category.
The 2019 federal ratings offer the first gauge of how schools performed last year while state A-F grades remain tied up by a potential hold harmless exemption to protect schools from low test scores in the first year of the new ILEARN exam.
The state adopted this second measure in 2017 to comply with new federal requirements under the Every Student Succeeds Act without changing state grades. Schools are scored based on whether they are on track to meet the state’s long-term goals in seven different areas: test scores, growth scores, attendance rates, graduation rates, the percentage of students who earn honors diplomas, gaps in passing rates among student groups, and progress for English-language learners.
This is the first year schools were put into categories. In 2018, they were given federal A-F grades, but the Indiana Department of Education altered its approach after the practice was criticized for being confusing
But it also makes it difficult to judge how schools are truly performing. State Board of Education members didn’t discuss the results before approving them on Wednesday. And unlike previous years, the Indiana Department of Education released a bare-bones spreadsheet that didn’t break down how schools’ grades were calculated or what scores were factored in, saying that would “undermine the hold harmless.â€
Under the state’s second accountability measure, known as federal grades, most of Indiana’s schools were considered to be meeting or approaching the state’s expectations. The federal measure, released in January, was not included in the hold harmless and was calculated using the low 2019 scores.
