Sunday in this space, we defended Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Glenda Ritz against attempts by state legislators to diminish her role.
In short, we think any changes to the office of superintendent should be made effective in 2021, so they do not target Ritz specifically for partisan reasons.
But we don’t consider Ritz and her Indiana Department of Education to be above criticism or questions.
A real test of Ritz’s leadership will come in the next two weeks, as we watch how she deals with a major problem.
The situation became complicated Monday, however, when Gov. Mike Pence said he is hiring an outside consultant to help tackle the issue.
The problem involves the time students in grades 3-8 will spend taking ISTEP+ tests this spring. Last week, the Department of Education revealed that those times will more than double.
Last year, students spent just over five hours taking the tests, which are spread over several days. This year, test times will range from 11 hours and 15 minutes to 12 hours, 30 minutes. Oddly, the youngest students will spend the most time taking tests.
Students will spend still more time taking practice tests — nearly six hours in the case of third-graders, according to one report, which says practice tests used to take an hour or less.
Sarah O’Brien, a member of the Indiana State Board of Education and a second-grade teacher in Avon, has called the extra testing time “simply unconscionable.”
What or who is to blame for the long test times? It depends who you ask.
A statement from the State Board of Education says “one of the biggest (factors) is the DOE did not do a pilot test last May or September as it originally planned and told the board it would do.”
The board says that turns the whole test into a pilot, and “… they are adding extra questions and will determine which questions will apply to the student’s score after they grade the results.” The number of extra questions caught the board by surprise.
“Piloting” is needed because the test is completely new this year, according to news reports. That’s one consequence of Indiana dropping the nationwide Common Core State Standards last year and writing its own set of educational standards.
“Educators have known since last summer that the test would be different, but the shock (last) week came when schools saw the amount of time the ISTEP+ would take,” said a report by Indiana Public Media.
The report said Ritz is blaming the situation on the federal No Child Left Behind law and telling people to take their complaints to their representatives in Congress.
Monday, Ritz requested a special meeting of the Board of Education to deal with the test-length issues.
A few hours later, Pence announced he is ordering that the test be made shorter and hiring an outside consultant to help.
Doing what it could, the board last week voted to give schools more days for testing. That would allow breaking the test into smaller bites each day.
As our chief educational officer, Ritz bears the responsibility for coming to the board with a workable plan. We’d like to hear her solution, but we really needed to hear it last week or earlier. If she has a plan now, she shouldn’t wait until the board meeting to reveal it.
With the testing set to start in two weeks, we hope everyone in Indianapolis will set egos aside, skip the finger-pointing and find an answer to keep ISTEP+ from becoming a marathon.