Chalkbeat Indiana is reporting today that nearly two-thirds of all Indiana students in grades 3-8 did not pass the new state standardized test, ILEARN, according to results released on Wednesday. The latest test scores represent a 13 percentage-point drop since last year — and the lowest statewide passing rate in recent history: 37.1%.
On Wednesday, the State Board of Education unanimously voted to delay the release of school letter grades. The decision is meant to give lawmakers time to consider stopping grades from lowering, which could negatively impact teacher pay and prompt state intervention down the road. The governor, state superintendent, and leading lawmakers have called for such a move.
“There are a lot of things on the line, it’s a big domino effect,” State Superintendent Jennifer McCormick said at a press conference last week. “If we don’t get this through, it will be devastating for many of our schools.”
Only 45 out of more than 17,000 Indiana schools saw their scores increase from the year before, most by a small margin. Half of all schools in the state saw their passing percentage drop by 13 percentage points or more. No school saw more than 82 percent of its students pass.
2019 ILEARN scores: Search for your school’s results
Statewide, 47.8 percent of students passed the math portion of the exam and 47.9 percent passed in English. And the new test showed little improvement of the gap between how students who are black or Hispanic perform compared with their white peers.
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