The majority of Brown County students scored higher on their ISTEP+ math and language arts exams last spring than the state average.

“Although we don’t use state averages as an end goal for ourselves, with all of the changes that have happened with this test in the past few years, it sort of ends up being your first point of comparison,” said Debbie Harman, the director of student learning for Brown County Schools.

In total, 67.6 percent of Brown County students in third through eighth grades passed their English-language arts exam. In math, 69.5 percent passed; and 59.8 percent of students passed both tests.

The state average is 65.2 percent passing English-language arts, 58.5 percent passing math and 51.4 percent passing both subjects.

The highest passing percentage in the district came from Van Buren Elementary School, which had 84.4 percent of fourth-graders pass the English-language arts exam.

Helmsburg Elementary School is the only school to improve school-wide over 2015-16 scores on the percentage of students passing math, English-language arts and both exams.

Brown County High School sophomores also took the ISTEP exam last year as part of their graduation requirements. Of those students, 59.4 percent passed English-language arts and 20.5 percent passed math, for a total of 19.6 percent of students who passed both.

Harman said one of the reasons the test was challenging for 10th-graders is because it covered Algebra I and eighth-grade math standards at the time the students were enrolled in Algebra II and geometry.

“So you think that, ‘Oh, if you can do Algebra II, you can do Algebra I.’ Well, not necessarily. You still have to do some preparation, because sometimes, the complexity of what you’re doing almost trips you up when it comes to doing something simpler,” Harman said.

Test fatigue might also have played a factor, Harman said. Tenth-graders also took the PSAT, and others had to take dual-credit or Advanced Placement class exams.

“We talk to kids about exams and what they mean, but after a while, in the moment of taking the test, it just becomes a lot to do in one school year,” Harman said.

What they mean

“Stabilizing” this standardized test is what school district leaders would love to see, since the scores are used as a way to monitor students’ academic progress and whether they are reaching standards required by the state.

At the beginning of the 2014-15 school year, the Indiana State Board of Education approved new “college and career readiness” standards. Students were tested over those standards when they took ISTEP+ that spring, giving teachers less than a year to prepare.

“You can’t keep changing the test, or progress measures are not possible to calculate,” Harman said.

Frustrations with that round of testing led state legislators to introduce, approve and get two bills signed into law that would hold teachers and schools harmless for the 2014-15 scores. Normally, they are evaluated and their pay is affected based partially on students’ standardized test achievement.

In the spring of 2019, students will again take a new test when the recently approved ILEARN exam replaces ISTEP+.

The federal government requires students be tested on English-language arts, math and science. The state has made passing that test a requirement to graduate, Harman said.

“This is not a stable target. We’re going to have to pay attention to it, but we’re going to have to not let it drive what we do completely,” Harman said.

She said the district has to look at “the end game” when making decisions for students: “for kids to be successfully accepted into an institution for higher learning after high school, whether that be a four- or two-year college, or into the workplace,” she said.

“Each one of those institutions is saying the same thing: We want kids who are willing to work hard. We want kids that are willing to come to school or work every day on time, complete their work to their best ability, ask questions when they don’t understand,” Harman added.

“Those are targets we can hit, and those are targets for successful living. Those are targets, I think, that help us meet our mission of lifelong impact.”

But that doesn’t mean the school corporation can ignore the scores, since they play a role in the district’s state “accountability grades” and in teacher evaluations.

Parents and teachers also look at ISTEP+ scores to see how their students are doing academically.

However, Harman said that score should not be the lone factor to determine a student’s performance.

“No one looks at ISTEP for college entrance. No one looks at ISTEP for you to be successful in the workplace. ISTEP is a state school accountability exam that our students have to take to make sure we look like we’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing,” she said.

“We have to, as a community, pay attention to ISTEP demands, but if we remain having that be a focus, if we allow that target to be what we aim for and don’t become more broad- thinking than that, we’re going to be doing a disservice to all of our students, because that target keeps moving.”

What doesn’t change is what businesses want from future employees, and that’s the target the district is aiming for.

“What we did not hear in any of our meetings with industry, the three industry sectors in south-central Indiana (defense, life science and advanced manufacturing), was that, ‘Gee, we wish we could get your ISTEP scores up; we’re really having some problems in our workplace.’ We didn’t hear that,” she said.

“But there’s always room for improvement. We want to make sure, though, that improvement translates into something meaningful to those who employ our kids. That is the huge shift in focus for us.”

Former Van Buren principal Christy Wrightsman was recently named the Brown County Schools district readiness coordinator, and her job is to focus on this idea of workplace readiness.

At a gathering on Sept. 12 Wrightsman spoke with about 40 community members, business owners and school employees about the importance of making sure each student has a pathway after graduation — college or otherwise.

For some students, that pathway could be to obtain certification that would allow them to start a job right after graduation and live in southwest-central Indiana, working in the defense, life science or advanced manufacturing industries, she said.

Work to do

When district leaders look at ISTEP scores, they examine whether or not the children were academically, emotionally and physically prepared, she said.

“There’s an endurance piece to this,” Harman said. “There is a ‘Can I read for this long, something that’s not real interesting, attend to what they’re asking me to do and then answer the questions? Or do I skip around while reading?’”

“That’s in the process being done in each building, each grade level, by each teacher, and each group of teachers teaching courses,” Harman said.

Students who did not pass ISTEP exams will have the opportunity to take them again this winter. High school teachers will need to make sure those students have the review and practice they need before then, since those students aren’t placed in a separate review class, Harman said.

Plans are in progress at the high school level to make sure subject review is incorporated into the 10th-grade math curriculum, Harman said. Fitting it all in is a challenge.

“You have 45 minutes for a period. How do you review for the graduation exam in the spring, as well as make sure you are teaching the content of the course the kids are currently taking? Otherwise, you end up with a snowball effect of, ‘Well, Algebra II was watered down for our kiddos because they were reviewing for ISTEP,’” she said.

Students do have the opportunity to enroll in a math review course as they are preparing for college entrance exams, in hopes of reducing the amount of review classes they may have to take in their freshman year of college, Harman said.

She said some work also remains to be done in trying to close the achievement gap between students who come from free- and reduced-price lunch homes and those who do not.

One way is for teachers and principals to continue to reach out to families to offer additional help, especially families in which both parents work evenings and are not able to offer help on homework or studying.

Having students attend summer school is another option that was put into place this year. Harman said about 20 students per grade level participated in kindergarten through eighth grade, with even more attending at the high school level.

Those students will be monitored to see if the extra help gave them an edge at the beginning of the school. Last school year, principals contacted families of students they thought would benefit from the extra help after reviewing their performance that school year, Harman said.

When looking at the English-language arts scores, Harman said writing scores carried that section, while reading scores show that students still struggle with understanding vocabulary.

This could be remedied by building up students’ endurance — teaching students to read well by allowing them to read a subject or genre they’re passionate about.

What will be on the test will most likely be nonfiction, and not as entertaining as what students would want to read, “but you can still apply what you’ve learned and the skills you have,” Harman said.

“That needs to be a motivator, to be able to show what you can do. Show the world, show the state, show your parents, show everybody what you can do,” she said.