In Brown County Schools, students are taught to think, to be curious, to be innovative and to collaborate, said Superintendent Laura Hammack.
Students are not tested on those lessons when taking standardized assessments, like ISTEP and ILEARN.
That is why district leaders are OK with seeing scores that are right at or above the state average on the first-ever ILEARN.
Scores were released last week for the statewide test that replaced ISTEP.
“I have no concerns,” Hammack told the school board last week. “I would hate for all of the work we’re doing, transforming the educational experience for students here, to be derailed so that we can teach to a test.
“We are so much better than that. I would rather have a lower letter grade and know we’re doing the right thing for kids every day in the classroom than have an A letter grade and know we’re really good at taking this test.”
Students in Grades 3 through 8 took the new test at the end of last school year. It was given completely online and had no time limit. “We had students who were relentless in persisting with the test and it would take, in some cases, hours for them to complete just one component,” she said.
“We ended up with very long test administration time periods, which really disturbed a lot of our students.”
ILEARN is an “adaptive test,” meaning it responds to the learner. If a student answers a question correctly, the next question will be more difficult. If a student answers incorrectly, the following question will be either at the same level or easier.
The details
The state average for both math and English/language arts testing was 37.1 percent of students passing. The state average for science was 47.4 percent passing, and for social studies, it was 46 percent.
At Brown County Junior High School, 32.9 percent of students passed both the math and English-language arts tests. Separately, 45.7 passed the English test and 42.5 percent passed math.
At Brown County Intermediate School, students took ILEARN in math, English, science and social studies. Of those students, 57.3 percent passed English and 59.7 passed math, with 48.8 percent passing both. Also, 52.9 percent of sixth graders passed the science assessment and 59.8 percent of fifth-graders passed the social studies portion.
Helmsburg Elementary School had the highest percentage of students passing both math and English, at 52.3 percent. HES also had 72 percent of fourth-graders pass the science assessment.
Sprunica Elementary School’s passing rate for both tests was 46 percent. Van Buren Elementary School’s passing rate for both was 41.4 percent. Fourth-graders at Sprunica had a 70.7 percent passing rate on the science assessment and Van Buren had 69.7 percent.
Hammack said district leaders did not know what to expect when it came to scores since the ILEARN is a completely different assessment from ISTEP. Some anecdotal evidence, like students taking hours to finish one component, and this being the first time students took an assessment completely online, led leaders to believe that scores may be low.
The delivery format, of questions getting more difficult or easier depending on if they answered correctly or not, was also new to students.
In Hammack’s Superintendent Corner column inside this week’s paper, she explains that the scores do not define the work teachers do every day or the students in those classrooms.
“I think it’s extremely important that it’s said at this time because our district is in a mode of transformation right now. We’re transforming to be aligned to the modern workforce and modern post-secondary education,” she said.
“It (ILEARN) is fundamentally misaligned to what we are trying to do as far as being a little bit more responsive to what the needs are of the modern workforce.”
The district has received thousands of dollars in grant money to invest in the future of students after high school by preparing them for whatever path they choose, whether that be college or entering the workforce.
The district also offers a Project Lead the Way curriculum at the high school, which offers more hands-on learning for students driven by them completing projects together.
Overall, the district is focused on STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and math) curriculum in every school, so when an assessment doesn’t cover that sort of curriculum, educators become frustrated, Hammack said.
“The STEM model is one that encourages curiosity, innovation, deep thinking and problem solving,” Hammack said. “An assessment format like this one (ILEARN) is much more of a drill-and-skill kind of methodology.”
ILEARN scores factor into teachers’ evaluations, into their pay, and into the letter grade that school districts receive each year.
State leaders also advocated for not penalizing teachers for how their students may have done on this test in its first year.
On Sept. 4, the Indiana Department of Education unanimously approved a resolution that there will be no action to issue school letter grades until lawmakers explore how to ease the transition to ILEARN.
Hammack said teachers can figure out how to teach to the ILEARN assessment, “but we don’t want them to do that.”
“That would be time completely misspent, and we believe the work they are doing currently to inspire innovation and collaboration is much more valuable and has far greater dividend reach in the end than just preparing students for a test,” she said.
What’s the use of these?
Scores from ILEARN and the last ISTEP cannot be compared, because they are different assessments. Rather, ILEARN scores will be used as a baseline for the next round of testing at the end of this school year to track any progress.
“It’s genuinely comparing apples to oranges,” Hammack said about ISTEP and ILEARN.
The ILEARN scores that parents should have received in the mail last week are one data point about how well children are learning in school, but educators also use many other assessments, Hammack said, like end-of-unit quizzes, projects or even a performance.
“Some way, the student is showing their mastery of the standard, or non-mastery. Then if we don’t have mastery, what do we need to do to ensure that the student does master that particular standard?” Hammack said.
Standardized assessments are not going away anytime soon, as they are required under the federal Every Student Succeeds Act.
At the school board meeting Sept. 5, Hammack said the district would soon be sending out a letter to parents to let them know it’s OK if their student did not perform well on ILEARN.
“Don’t worry about it. We’re going to keep doing the right thing in the classroom so that our kids can succeed,” she said.
[sc:pullout-title pullout-title=”What is ILEARN?” ][sc:pullout-text-begin]
The Indiana Learning Evaluation Assessment Readiness Network (ILEARN) measures student achievement and growth according to the Indiana Academic Standards. ILEARN is the summative accountability assessment for Indiana students and assesses:
English/Language Arts (ELA) (Grades 3-8)
Mathematics (Grades 3-8)
Science (Grades 4 and 6)
Social Studies (Grade 5)
Biology (high school)
U.S. Government – optional (high school)
Source: Indiana Department of Education
[sc:pullout-text-end][sc:pullout-title pullout-title=”ILEARN scores” ][sc:pullout-text-begin]
Brown County Schools
English/language arts: 53.3 percent
Math: 55.8 percent
Both: 42.7 percent
Science: 62 percent
Social studies: 59.8 percent
Brown County Junior High School
ELA: 45.7 percent
Math: 42.5 percent
Both: 32.9 percent
Brown County Intermediate School
ELA: 57.3 percent
Math: 59.7 percent
Both: 48.8 percent
Science: 52.9 percent
Social studies: 59.8 percent
Helmsburg Elementary School
ELA: 55.7 percent
Math: 75 percent
Both: 52.3 percent
Science: 72 percent
Sprunica Elementary School
ELA: 55.2 percent
Math: 60.9 percent
Both: 46 percent
Science: 70.7 percent
Van Buren Elementary School
ELA: 62.9 percent
Math: 60 percent
Both: 41.4 percent
Science: 69.7 percent
State
ELA: 47.9 percent
Math: 47.8 percent
Both: 37.1 percent
Science: 47.4 percent
Social studies: 46 percent
Source: Indiana Department of Education
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