So Much for “High Stakes” Testing
The ISTEP+ test scores are in and guess what, despite the crocodile tears of the status quo, students continue to make improvements.
As you may have seen, according to the Indiana Department of Education 80.7% of Indiana students in public schools passed the English/Language Arts portion of the test, up from 79.5% in 2013. In Math, 83.5% passed, up from 83.0% in 2013. Finally, 74.7% of Indiana students passed both English/Language Arts and Math, up from 73.7% last year.
Our friends at Chalkbeat Indiana have a database where you can look up your kid;s school and see how they did.
Remember last year, when we had the ISTEP test glitch and the education establishment wanted to have the exams thrown out, but it turned out students overall did better than the year before, and they clammed up.
Now the big concern is a new test to meet federal standards and No Child Left Behind, and once again, there will be more whining about high stakes testing. But if you look at the results, the kids seem to be handling things just well, maybe the adults could learn a thing or two from them.
