State Board of Education crafting new formula for grading Indiana schools

The Indiana State Board of Education heard feedback Wednesday on a proposal from a panel composed of school and business leaders created last year to advise the state board on changes to the state’s A-F accountability system. The proposal that the state board will discuss in more detail at its Oct. 15 meeting focuses on an individual student’s growth year over year. It’s a shift from the current model where students are compared to their peers in gauging their academic achievement at school.

The proposal — which Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Glenda Ritz described as a student-centered accountability system — weighs performance on state standardized tests and the growth of individual students evenly in determining a school’s A-F grade. Under the proposed system, educators and parents will be able to see performance and growth separately, and information on a student’s growth will be included in the information they receive following a state assessment.

Ritz said the proposal is an improvement over the current model because schools will be able to receive more credit for individual students’ academic growth.

Keith Gambill, an Evansville teacher and Indiana State Teachers Association representative who served on the A-F panel, said the premise of labeling schools with a letter grade from state standardized tests doesn’t make sense.

“The assessments that our children are given were not designed to tell us what the performance of that school is,” Gambill said. “They were designed to tell us where a student is and to help the instructor diagnose what the child needs to concentrate on and what the school needs to help them move forward.”

“A school who has low performance and good growth — they are headed in some great directions,” Ritz said. “We want to make sure they are not only awarded for that good work but that we can provide more supports so they can bring their achievement level up.”

State education officials cautioned against a side-by-side comparison of the state’s current A-F model and the proposed calculation, and it’s not clearly known how the proposed framework could change what accountability grades schools across the state receive. The new model moves from a four-point scale to a 100-point system, so a school’s score corresponding to its letter grade designation mirrors a common grading scale used by schools. For example, schools receiving 90 to 100 points earn an A.

The earliest the state could shift to the new A-F model is after data is received from testing in the 2015-16 school year, Ritz said. The change also comes at a time when the state just approved new K-12 learning benchmarks and is preparing to launch a new assessment system next school year. Both factors could affect student performance and school accountability grades.

State board member Dan Elsener said the state changing the way A-F grades are calculated shouldn’t obscure what he described as the crisis some schools face. Another board member asked how the schools taken over by the state because of poor academic performance that led to consecutive “F” grades would fare under the proposed model.

“You cannot give a school a grade that deceives the children, parents and public,” Elsener said.

State education officials also will discuss how to transition to the new A-F calculation, said Claire Fiddian-Green, co-leader of the Gov. Mike Pence-created Center for Education and Career Innovation. Because the proposal requires the establishment of a baseline to gauge student achievement, experts have advised the state four years of student data is needed before the information can start being used.

A next step in the process is to begin rule making to determine how the new A-F grading framework will be implemented. The monthslong process also includes public hearings.