Next month, Brown County students will take the statewide standardized assessment ILEARN as a way to see where they stand academically while learning through a pandemic.

Brown County students in Grades 3 through 8 can start taking the test in English and math beginning April 19. The testing window closes on May 14.

The ILEARN biology end-of-course assessment will take place between April 19 and May 21 for high-schoolers.

In 2019, ISTEP standardized testing was replaced by a test called ILEARN. Creating and implementing the ILEARN cost the state $45 million over three years, according to the Indianapolis Star.

The test was not given in the spring of 2020 because of COVID.

This spring, the ILEARN and the IREAD-3 (for third-graders) will be administered to students in person. The Indiana Department of Education has issued guidance to school districts on how to bring in students who are on remote learning to test.

Students will take the ILEARN for their current grade level, so if a fifth-grader did not take ILEARN last year, then this year, that student will take the sixth-grade assessment, Superintendent Laura Hammack explained.

The state legislature decided to hold school districts harmless for their scores on ILEARN the first year due to low scores statewide compared to ISTEP scores. Now, legislators will be considering whether or not to hold schools harmless for this year’s test results too because students missed so much school because of COVID-19. If the legislators decide to hold districts harmless for test scores, that means they will not affect schools’ state accountability grades.

“It is more important now than ever that we capture a snapshot of student learning and progress to fully understand the impact of COVID-19, address educational inequities that have been exacerbated by the pandemic, and inform parents on how their children are doing,” said Indiana Secretary of Education Katie Jenner in a press release.

Last school year, Gov. Eric Holcomb closed all school buildings in March due to COVID-19.

Students in every Brown County school but Van Buren Elementary have had to learn from home at some point due to COVID-19 this school year, but students have been able to be physically in class most of the year.

Students were able to choose a 100-percent remote option, though.

Hammack said schools will contact each family who is doing remote learning to have them come back to their school to take their standardized tests.

If students don’t come into the building to test, that can hurt their school, Hammack said in an email in February.

“There are accountability measures that negatively impact school/district performance when participation rates don’t meet expectations. This has never been an issue for us; however, we are deeply concerned about these implications this year,” she said.

Why do this?

Teachers’ base salaries are not impacted by standardized assessments, but extra money teachers can earn through a grant is determined according to a teacher’s evaluation rating. A factor in that rating is student growth and achievement on standardized assessments, Hammack explained.

In 2019, the school district received a five-year, $5.5 million federal grant from the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching. Part of that money funds teacher training, evaluations, and a performance-based compensation plan.

Each school building’s letter grade factors into 50 percent of the teacher bonuses that are applied on top of base salaries, Hammack said. School letter grades are based on how many students passed the standardized test the previous spring and how those students have grown academically on that test.

Some Brown County teachers believe there could be better use of money this year than administering standardized tests to students, like helping them learn what they would have learned last spring had schools not been closed.

Brenda Ely is the vice president of the Brown County Educators Association and has been a teacher at Helmsburg Elementary School for more than 20 years. “We’re going to have kids, when this is over, that have missed a lot of instruction. Put that money towards remediation; put that money towards more teachers to help catch those kids up or programs to help catch those kids up,” she said during a panel discussion in January.

Also, in February, every junior at Brown County High School will take the ISTEP+ exam — a test they should have taken as sophomores last school year.

“They missed an entire quarter of good and proper instruction, but we’re going to take them out of four mornings of classes,” BCHS English teacher Rebekah Bryan said. “Which means that my AP students, who have another standardized test to take in May, will miss my class four times to take ISTEP because they didn’t take it last year.”

“They will miss at least three classes four times, so we’re taking them out of four class periods after they missed three months of class periods last year just to give them this test.”

Hammack also said she is “deeply concerned” about the validity of a statewide assessment this year.

“Standardized assessments insist on continuity of administration. This school year has witnessed ongoing interruptions in educational service delivery for students and staff,” she said.

“We don’t expect these interruptions to stop when the assessment windows begin.”

If the legislature does decide to hold schools harmless for standardized test scores this school year, Hammack said that is welcomed, but she is more concerned about taking students out of the classroom for testing.

“These testing administrations are taking away weeks of classroom instruction and student learning,” she said.

“In a school year where every instructional minute is valued, using these precious minutes for an assessment with questionable validity is sincerely troubling.”