INDIANAPOLIS — Killed off seven months ago by the General Assembly and Gov. Mike Pence following repeated test administration and technology errors, the ISTEP standardized exam appears to be slowly rising out of its grave, as officials realize replacing it isn't so easy.
Nicole Fama, chairwoman of the state's ISTEP replacement study committee, admitted Tuesday that the 23-member panel will be unable to recommend a specific new test for lawmakers to adopt for use during the 2017-18 school year — despite meeting for dozens of hours since May analyzing what other states do.
"Our recommendations will need to be broad in nature," Fama said. "This is really just the first step in the process."
As a result, state Sen. Dennis Kruse, R-Auburn, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, said he now sees no alternative to the General Assembly taking up legislation in January requiring schools to continue using ISTEP, at least for a few more years, to measure what Hoosier students have learned.
"If we get a flawless computer system working and you get the results back sooner, I think people could accept keeping what we have for a while," Kruse said.
State Rep. Robert Behning, R-Indianapolis, chairman of the House Education Committee, agreed that ISTEP likely will continue beyond its scheduled final use during the current school year.
"Based on what we heard today, and what we've heard all the consultants say, it will be very difficult for us to immediately think that in '18 we're going to have a new test," Behning said.
"We'll probably have to have some sort of short extension to keep something in place as we develop what we think is the next assessment."
ISTEP has been the cornerstone of Indiana's school accountability system for the past 30 years, and determines, in large part, which schools are subject to state takeover. It also is used to identify teachers eligible for performance pay.
A key issue with replacing ISTEP is the state's educational standards which are, by law, required to "maintain Indiana sovereignty" and be "the highest standards in the United States."
Those mandates largely rule out Indiana simply making another state's standardized test its own.
They also effectively prohibit the use of a test aligned to the multi-state Common Core State Standards, which Indiana dropped in 2014 at Pence's recommendation after initially adopting them in 2010 under Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels.
Nevertheless, Kruse said he's not entirely opposed to Indiana administering a Common Core test, provided it was modified to Indiana's unique standards. Though Kruse is not sure other legislative Republicans would agree.
Many conservatives consider the state-created Common Core to be a "federal takeover" of education, because the standards have been endorsed by Democratic President Barack Obama.
"It would be a fiery issue probably," Kruse said. "There would be a lot of debate on that."
Glenda Ritz, the Democratic state superintendent of public instruction, declined to say whether Indiana would be closer to an ISTEP replacement if GOP lawmakers hadn't blocked her from leading the study committee.
Her Indiana Department of Education is proposing to replace ISTEP with the "Indiana OnTrack Assessment System," which Ritz claims will consume less classroom time and cost the state less money by eliminating redundancies in the current exam.