GOSHEN — Seated alongside his classmates Monday in the Parkside Elementary School gymnasium, fifth-grader Tommy Claxton clapped and cheered as his teachers performed a skit about ISTEP+ during the assembly.
For Parkside students, the school-wide assembly was an excuse to laugh at their teachers as they performed silly skits and competed in “ISTEP Stomp” — a makeshift game show similar to Family Feud. But the fun came alongside important messages.
“Go to bed early and eat a healthy breakfast!”
“Read each question carefully!”
“Answer every question!”
Mary Brookins, a fourth-grade teacher at Parkside, said educators plan some sort of event each year to get students excited about the test and ease their fears.
“We want to make sure the students know that ISTEP isn’t something to dread,” Brookins said. “We want them to have a positive mindset.”
Other local schools have made similar attempts to help students prepare for the test without worry.
West Noble Middle School staff Tuesday unveiled a music video featuring teachers and staff performing a parody of the Flo Rida song “Going Down For Real,” with lyrics encouraging students to succeed on the test.
Final time?
ISTEP+ testing began this week for Hoosier students for what could be the final time as state lawmakers consider plans to create a panel tasked with recommending a test to take its place. The first ISTEP+ testing window ends Friday and students will have a short break before the second session of the test begins in mid-April.
Legislators from both chambers have proposed bills that would call for an end to the ISTEP+ test in 2017.
“The (ISTEP) name has been tarnished,” Rep. Wes Culver, R-Goshen, said Wednesday. “And we should start over.”
Sen. Carlin Yoder, R-Middlebury, expressed similar feelings about the exam.
“It’s a cumbersome test that’s not working,” Yoder said. “Hopefully next year we’ll have a much better alternative ironed out that’s more student and teacher friendly.”
Wa-Nee Community Schools Superintendent Joe Sabo said lawmakers are on the right track with plans to dissolve the ISTEP+ program.
“I think that’s a step in the right direction,” he said. “I think teachers, administrators, parents and children are all looking forward to something that’s not as stressful or time consuming.”
The fall of ISTEP+
Despite teachers’ efforts to be festive with the exam, ISTEP+, also known as the Indiana Statewide Testing for Educational Progress Plus, has faced sharp criticism in recent years due to technology glitches and delayed results that frustrated teachers, students, parents, administrators and lawmakers.
The test is designed to test students’ knowledge of the state’s academic standards in math and English/language arts. The assessment is given each year to students in third through eighth grade. Hoosier students in fourth and sixth grade are also tested based on their science knowledge and fifth and seventh graders are tested in social studies. Beginning this spring, high school sophomores will also be required to take the test.
Results from the statewide assessment play an important role in evaluating teachers, grading schools and influencing public perception of how Hoosier schools are performing.
When the ISTEP+ program was created in 1987, it was a system designed to study students’ knowledge and determine how financial support would be distributed, Wawasee Community Schools Superintendent Tom Edington said.
Schools that scored high in comparison to schools with a similar student makeup and enrollment size were awarded financial incentives, Edington said.
“But the greater amount of money was saved and given to those schools that didn’t do well in comparison to other schools like them,” he said. “It was financial help provided to the school to try to improve things.”
Today, schools that do well are congratulated and under performing schools are threatened with government takeover, Edington explained.
“It used to be this parental sort of attitude where the state would come alongside these struggling schools and help. In today’s environment, what we’re hearing from the state is ‘get better fast or we’re going to come and take you over,’” Edington said. “ISTEP has become a punitive system and it wasn’t like that 28 years ago.”
Increased controversy
In more recent years, ISTEP+ has been plagued by controversies.
Since it’s inception, the timing test has shifted from the fall to the spring and back again and test makers struggled to keep up with the changing state standards.
In 2010, Indiana was among the first states to adopt Common Core State Standards, but lawmakers later passed a bill to reconsider the standards and in 2014 followed with a bill to void the state’s adoption of Common Core altogether and created the Indiana Academic Standards.
However, Indiana was required by the U.S. Department of Education to administer a “college and career ready” test by 2015 and the existing ISTEP+ test needed additional questions to meet that requirement.
Adding those questions stretched the test to an estimated 10 to 12 hours, eliciting concerns from educators and parents across the state.
Indiana Gov. Mike Pence later rushed a bill through the Legislature to shorten the test, thus delaying the testing period.
Meanwhile, the online version of ISTEP+ continued to be riddled with what state officials dubbed “technology glitches.”
The testing troubles became more public in recent years when 10,000 Hoosier students reported problems taking the ISTEP+ test online.
By 2013, the number of students experiencing disruptions with the online test rose to about 78,000 statewide, or about 16 percent of all test takers.
Last year, the challenges continued, leading state leaders to cut ties with CTB-McGraw Hill. British-owned testing company Pearson Education was selected to create the 2016 ISTEP+ test.
Test results for the spring 2015 exam weren’t released in early January, nearly eight months after the final student took the 2015 assessment and well into the following school year.
Issues continue
Despite a change in the company offering the statewide assessment, technology glitches and other issues continue, local superintendents say.
Since Tuesday, schools have received multiple emails from the Indiana Department of Education, “in regards to questions that are confusing or contain errors that are cropping up as students take the test at multiple grade levels,” said Lakeland School Corp. Curriculum Director Crystal Leu. “There are also questions being raised about the reading levels of the texts in the reading portion of the test. We have received new emails each day on how to deal with these issues if students have already taken those tests or if they will be completing them later this week or next.”
Leu said school leaders at Lakeland are “disheartened” to see the new version of the test, “so far is no more valid or well designed than tests in the past.
“ISTEP seems to be constantly ‘under construction’ and has many issues, both in development and implementation,” Leu continued. “We are still seeing many errors and glitches even with a new company.”
Wawasee students experienced technology issues and glitches early on in the test and challenges continued throughout the week, Edington said.
“This year has not been without issues,” he said. “I think given the situation, it’s just a fact of life at this point that there have been and would be issues with the test.”
Goshen Community Schools Superintendent Diane Woodworth said Friday that technology issues continued at Goshen High School.
Students in elementary and middle school students took the paper-and-pencil version of the test, but 10th grade students were required to test online, Woodworth said. Several high school students reported being kicked off the system, despite using the same connection and technology as their classmates, she explained.
“This year’s test, despite being administered by a different testing company, largely feels like a repeat of what we’ve experienced in the past,” Woodworth said.