Indiana school superintendent Ritz proposes cutting 3 hours from ISTEP exam

However, for the proposal to take effect, the General Assembly must act before testing starts Feb. 25.

Most of the proposed test time reduction comes from shrinking the number of student answers on unscored pilot questions set to be used on future ISTEP exams.

Test designers originally sought to have students answer pilot questions because this year's ISTEP exam is a brand new test aligned to Indiana's new educational standards, and the state needs to build a pool of valid test items for use on future exams.

Ritz, the Democratic state superintendent of public instruction, said after working with test vendor CTB McGraw-Hill and the two out-of-state experts hired by Republican Gov. Mike Pence, she now believes splitting the pilot questions among the 450,000 test takers in grades 3-8 will be sufficient for the state's needs and significantly reduce test time.

She also is recommending Indiana law be changed to eliminate a requirement that 100 percent of the open-ended test items be publicly released after the test is administered for parent review and teacher preparation purposes.

If just 20 percent are released, the remainder can be reused on future exams, eliminating the need for pilot open-ended questions, she said.

Though parents likely will not be able to request the open-ended portion of their child's test be re-scored this year, since that would compromise the questions.

In addition, Ritz endorsed suspending the social studies portion of ISTEP for students in grades 5 and 7, which is required by Indiana law but not for compliance with federal education mandates. That would further reduce their test times by about an hour.

The debate over how to cut the scheduled 12-hours of ISTEP testing set for two, two-week periods in February-March and April-May, now shifts to the Republican-controlled General Assembly, which is in many ways responsible for creating the extra-long test.

The Legislature last year scrapped Indiana's adoption of Common Core State Standards and banned use of the 9-10 hour PARCC standardized test on Common Core components.

Lawmakers then ordered the State Board of Education adopt Indiana-only standards that must, by law, be "the highest standards in the United States."

That required creation of a new test aligned to those standards since last year's 6-hour ISTEP exam tested other material.

Michele Walker, director of student assessment at the Department of Education, said higher standards typically require more rigorous tests to measure student achievement, such as asking students to incorporate evidence from a reading segment in their written essay answers rather than just writing their opinions on what they read.

Students also need to be given more time to do that type of work, she said.

House Speaker Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis, and Senate President David Long, R-Fort Wayne, have indicated they are ready to promptly make whatever changes in law are needed to reduce the duration of the ISTEP exam.

Ritz said she will work with the Legislature next week to enact her proposed changes and communicate to local schools which test items they should be giving their students.

Even though Ritz's recommendations seem to fulfill Pence's last-minute demands to shorten the test, some of the governor's 10 appointees on the state school board seemed to go out of their way to blame Ritz for the extra-long test.

At-large member Gordon Hendry, of Indianapolis, nominally Ritz's Democratic ally, bemoaned the board did not have more say in creating the test and condemned the plan to remove social studies, even though Pence wants social studies off the test this year.

Hendry also led a successful board effort to deny consideration of Ritz's proposal pausing A-F school grades for one year while students and teachers get used to the new exam.

Daniel Elsener, a politically independent board member from Indianapolis with close ties to the Republican Party, said Pence deserves all the credit for shortening the test in the wake of Ritz's "leadership void."

"I'm glad the governor got an expert in here to get this under control," Elsener said.

Gary's Tony Walker, a Democrat, stood apart from the other board members in arguing the test should remain unchanged.

He said cutting sections willy-nilly just days before students take a test that was 12-18 months in development is almost certain to lead to significant mistakes.

"If we start chopping away at this test now, we probably will create an issue with the integrity of the test, and that's a bigger issue, in my mind, than we have by asking kids to do an extra three hours of testing," Walker said.