High-stakes testing is not unique to Indiana. And tests in other states appear to be just as long as those in Indiana — though some officials refused to disclose just how long.
Indiana students in grades three through eight take ISTEP-Plus, which has been revised to comply with Indiana's new state standards. The practice test increased to 6 hours from 1 hour this year, and the total test time rose to 12 hours from 6, in part, because many pilot test questions were included in preparation for the revamped 2016 exam.
The new 12-hour time frame has caused an uproar among parents, teachers and some administrators.
Gov. Mike Pence signed an executive order Monday to shorten the length of ISTEP-Plus after educators and parents across the state complained loudly about the stress it causes students and teachers. He also hired two consultants, Bill Auty, of Oregon, and Edward Roeber, of Michigan, to recommend ways to shorten the test.
On Friday, Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Glenda Ritz said the Indiana Department of Education reduced the length of the ISTEP-Plus test by more than 3 hours for students in all grades.
Student-assessment tests in some nearby states are similar in length to Indiana's new tests, though a spokesman for the Michigan Department of Public Education said he was unable to say how long the test was.
Amanda Simhauser, a spokeswoman for the Illinois State Board of Education, said the state adopted the new Illinois Learning Standards in 2010 based on Common Core State Standards, material that students in grades K through 12 should know. Illinois is transitioning to the PARCC exam.
"That test will be about 6.5 to 7.5 hours at every grade level," Simhauser said.
"Students don't take a practice exam in class. There is a PARCC practice test that students can take online and parents can see how it goes. Students do not take the entire PARCC exam in one sitting. It's divided into two parts. Most students will complete each unit in about 40 to 60 minutes."
In Kentucky, third-graders take a 6-hour exam, fourth-graders an 11-hour exam and eighth-graders, an exam that's nearly 15 hours long, according to a statement from Kentucky regarding its state-mandated K-PREP test. Test times vary between 10 and 12 hours for children in fifth through seventh grades.
Nancy Rodriguez, spokeswoman for the Kentucky Department of Education, said Kentucky's accountability system is called the Unbridled Learning accountability system. The K-PREP, or Kentucky Performance Rating for Educational Progress, tests have been given since 2011-12, and are in the fourth year. Some components are given in the fall and some in spring.
Rodriguez said Kentucky's state-level assessments take less than 1 percent of total instructional time in a given school year. Students in grades three through eight are tested in reading, mathematics, science, social studies and writing.
End-of-course exams are given to students to test content knowledge at the end of the courses in English II, Algebra II, biology and U.S. History.
Troubles elsewhere?
The Michigan Department of Education calls its new test M-STEP, for Michigan Student Test for Educational Progress. Aligned with Common Core State Standards, M-STEP tests students in grades three through eight. There is a practice exam and a test, which replaced the previous 44-year-old exam, spokesman Bill Disessa said.
But Diessa could not say how long the exams were. "We did not time the previous exam, and we didn't time this one," Disessa said.
However, a Michigan high school principal, Steve Gabriel, commenting on the Michigan Association of Secondary Principals' online site, said in a post last December that he was concerned about the new test's length.
He noted the 11th grade assessment comprised eight partial days of testing, or approximately 16 hours, and said the new testing time for students was an increase of five partial days, up to eight hours total. Little other information was available online or from official sources about how long Michigan's M-STEP would be when administered this spring.
A statement by Michigan State Superintendent Mike Flanagan last fall shows that state may have had similar issues as Indiana in settling on the "right" test. For the last few years, the state had planned to use one test, but the state threw out that test in June, declaring a different type of exam would be given this spring.
"The changes in law diverted what the department and local school districts had been developing and preparing for over the past three years. It put schools in some unwelcomed limbo while our experts scrambled to find testing content that met the legislative requirements," Flanagan said in a 2014 statement.
All Michigan juniors take the ACT exam and eighth-graders take EXPLORE, a high school readiness test, and sophomores take something called PLAN, a college-readiness test, according to the Michigan DOE website.
Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction spokesman Thomas McCarthy said the Wisconsin Student Assessment System, or, WSAS, is a comprehensive statewide program designed to provide information about what students know in core academic areas and whether they can apply what they know. However, as with Michigan, official information was not available on the length of the exams.
Assessment tests in Wisconsin include a variety of exams for students in grades three through eight in English/language arts and math. High school juniors are tested in English/language arts, science and writing and ACT WorkKeys.
In Indiana, Ritz said the new 3-hour time reduction will come from modifying the exam's pilot portion for now but will ensure all pilot questions are taken by enough students to guarantee validity.
Education consultant Schauna Relue said this is an abnormal year because of the pilot items, but "if the state is able to reduce the tests, they will still meet the executive order that the test must be reduced and still be strong enough to meet all federal and state mandates."