Test anxiety: Support grows for replacing Indiana's problem-plagued ISTEP+ exam

The Indiana General Assembly is considering several bills that would replace the ISTEP+ exam. One of them would end the student assessment platform as soon as next year.

Beginning with the 2016-17 school year, Senate Bill 566 would replace the ISTEP+ with a nationally used “off-the-shelf” test. The bill’s backers say it would save the state millions of dollars — and give students a test widely supported by Hoosier educators.

The old test

The current iteration of the ISTEP+ — provided to Indiana for the last few years by CTB/McGraw-Hill, a division of McGraw-Hill Education, and based in California — has been widely panned throughout the state. Concern over the test’s length among educators and parents last month resulted in a bill signed by the governor that cut the test nearly in half.

Among a host of other problems with the ISTEP+, educators have expressed frustration about how often the high-stakes test changes from year to year. Its fluctuation makes attempts at tracking student progress like comparing “apples to cauliflower,” said Ann Linson, superintendent of East Noble School Corp.

“If you want to measure student growth, you can’t depend on the ISTEP+ test to do that,” Linson said.

In response to the current test, a group of 13 local superintendents sent a letter Monday to state lawmakers and education leaders, including Gov. Mike Pence and Superintendent of Public Instruction Glenda Ritz, expressing the superintendents’ lack of faith in the ISTEP+ and calling for a replacement.

“(We) have lost all confidence in the CTB/McGraw-Hill platform as well as any recommendation to consider CTB’s test results as valid and reliable representations of our Indiana public schools,” wrote the superintendents, on behalf of the Northeast Indiana Superintendents Study Council.

Other school administrators around the state have expressed similar sentiments.

“We are not against school accountability, but we want it to be accurate, and we want it to be reliable,” said Galen Mast, superintendent of Smith-Green Community Schools. “We need some kind of measuring stick, but something different than ISTEP+, because it’s just not working right now.”

The bill

State lawmakers are responding to the general dissatisfaction by considering SB 566, a 94-page bill that addresses the ISTEP+, in addition to a variety of other education issues.

The bill would commission the Indiana Department of Education to choose a new testing program by June 2016. The bill was assigned to the Education Committee in the state House of Representatives.

State Rep. David Ober, R-Albion, is serving as one of the bill’s sponsors. There is clearly public support for making changes to the assessment program, he said.

“You don’t need to travel very far to hear folks are upset about ISTEP+,” Ober said.

He cited concerns about the current exam including what concepts it measures, how it measures them, how helpful the test is for teachers and how much time students spend taking the test.

But legislators need to proceed carefully, Ober said. Whatever changes the General Assembly makes could affect funding from the federal government, particularly money tied to the No Child Left Behind Act.

If the state changes to a test that doesn’t meet federal standards, Ober said, impoverished school districts would take the biggest hit, as they typically benefit most from No Child Left Behind funding.

“The stakes are pretty high,” Ober said.

Cost savings

By the same token, if the state does it right, Ober said, a new test could save the government millions of dollars — and give school administrators an assessment program they actually support.

Just in the last week, the state announced its contracts for future assessment testing. All told, the test contracts run more than $130 million, including $38 million for the ISTEP+, over the next two years. The contracts are not yet final.

SB 566, however, would allow the Department of Education to select a nationally used test to replace ISTEP+, cutting out the cost of developing an Indiana-specific test.

One test-writing company, the Northwest Evaluation Association, believes it could take over Indiana’s assessment testing program at half the cost of the ISTEP+, according to state Sen. Dennis Kruse, R-Auburn.

Sen. Ryan Mishler, R-Bremen, is one of the bill’s co-authors. He said he thinks the bill could save somewhere between $20 million and $30 million.

A popular alternative

Furthermore, the Northwest Evaluation Association is supported by superintendents around the state. In their letter, the 13 local superintendents specifically recommend NWEA as a replacement for ISTEP+.

A third of Indiana schools already contract with NWEA for testing, according to the superintendents’ letter. Of the 13 school administrators who signed the document, a majority of their school districts presently contract with NWEA or formerly used its tests.

As many as 80 percent of Indiana school districts at one time contracted with NWEA, according to Kruse. Many, however, dropped the program several years ago after the state began offering a comparable assessment program at no charge to school districts. Districts that currently offer NWEA do so with their locally generated income.

Formative vs. summative

NWEA specializes in “formative” tests, which track student progress over the school year, while ISTEP+ is a “summative” test, which focuses on outcomes.

Mast compares NWEA tests to a scoreboard and the ISTEP+ to a game’s final score.

“The scoreboard gives you data for how you are doing. It doesn’t do you any good to look at the scoreboard after the game,” Mast said. “We need that scoreboard along the way.”

Several other superintendents from the four-county area made similar points about the ISTEP+. The test’s data just aren’t useful, they said.

The goal of SB 566, Mishler said, is to solve that problem.

To meet No Child Left Behind standards, a portion of the test will be summative, Mishler said, but its focus will be on tracking student progress.

“I want to focus on growth,” Mishler said.

Mishler’s bill passed the state Senate, 46-3, sending it to the House of Representatives.