Tag Archives: sat

Changes to Graduation Requirements Imminent

Posted on by
Reply

ISTEP will soon change into ILEARN, per House Enrolled Act 1003 which was signed into law this spring. However, an important part of the legislation is often overlooked. There will soon be changes to graduation requirements; instead of having end-of-course assessments be counted as the graduation exam, graduation pathways will be determined by the State Board of Education (SBOE). These options could include:

  • passing end-of-course assessments;
  • SAT or ACT scores;
  • Armed Services Vocational Aptitude exams;
  • industry-recognized credential; or
  • earning of advanced placement, international baccalaureate or dual credits.

Obviously, employer input is key to ensuring that these graduation pathways have currency for students/future employees. Governor Holcomb has appointed the Chamber’s Caryl Auslander, vice president of education and workforce development, to sit on the Graduation Pathways Panel along with representation from the SBOE, Superintendent of Public Instruction, Commission for Higher Education, Department of Workforce Development and chairs of the House and Senate education committees.

This panel will meet in late summer/early fall; we will keep you updated on the process.

Indiana Chamber-Ball State Study: Student Performance Suffers in Smaller Districts

Posted on by
Reply

School corporation size has a direct impact on student achievement. And more than half of Indiana school corporations are too small to produce the most effective outcomes, according to research commissioned by the Indiana Chamber of Commerce Foundation and conducted by the Ball State University Center for Business and Economic Research (CBER).

Numerous earlier studies, both nationally and by CBER, found that school corporations with fewer than 2,000 students are not able to operate at optimal efficiency to maximize resources going into the classroom. This new study – School Corporation Size & Student Performance: Evidence from Indiana – (full report and Appendix available at www.indianachamber.com/education) also documents significantly poorer academic performance, on average, for students from these smaller corporations. Comprehensive analysis and modeling reveals the following improved outcomes if school corporations contain between 2,000 and 2,999 students:

  • SAT test scores (+20.5 points)
  • Advanced Placement (AP) pass rates (+14.9%)
  • Eighth-grade ISTEP scores (+5%)
  • Algebra and biology end of course assessment (ECA) pass rates (+4%)

“This is not about closing buildings or eliminating schools,” says Indiana Chamber President and CEO Kevin Brinegar. “It’s about reducing per-pupil administrative costs to put more money into classrooms, increasing pay for deserving teachers, making more STEM classes available and, most importantly, helping ensure the best possible student outcomes.

“That will drive per capita income and is especially critical for smaller communities,” he continues. “Greater student achievement is the biggest thing we can do for rural economic development and those local residents.”

In 2014, 154 of Indiana’s 289 school corporations had total enrollments of less than 2,000 students. Eighty-five of those corporations experienced enrollment declines of 100 or more students between 2006 and 2014.

Only 21 of Indiana’s 92 counties have a single school corporation. Twenty-two counties have three corporations, 19 have two corporations and 13 have four corporations. The most corporations in a single county are 16 in Lake County and 11 in Marion County.

“With today’s fierce competition for talent, too many young people in our state are suffering due to inadequate preparation for postsecondary education or the workforce,” Brinegar adds. “The data show smaller corporations are getting smaller. In many instances, it’s already too difficult for them to overcome the challenges of limited resources.”

Ball State researchers took into account demographic and socioeconomic factors. For example, the average SAT score of 949.5 in the smallest corporations (between 240 and 999 students) compares to a 989.8 average in corporations with between 2,000 and 2,999 students. Even when economic differences between corporations are factored in, that 40-point raw gap remains at more than 20.5 points.

AP course offerings are one indicator of preparation for higher education, with higher-level math and science courses often a pre-requisite for pursuing STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) majors. Corporations with fewer than 1,000 students offered an average of 2.69 AP courses with enrollment of 8.53 students in 2015. That compares to 5.95 offerings and 22.26 students for corporations with between 2,000 and 2,999 students and even more courses and student participants in larger school districts.

The research reveals “94% of Indiana’s small school corporations (fewer than 2,000 students) are contiguous with another small corporation.”

North Central Parke Community School Corp. was created in 2013 by the merger of the Rockville and Turkey Run school districts. Parke County continues to lose population and district enrollment for the most recent school year was only 1,200. In April, the school board voted to combine (within two years) into one high school and one middle school.

“It’s hard to operate a comprehensive academic program” with so few students, district superintendent Tom Rohr said at the time of the most recent vote. “That’s really … a driving force. Our teachers have gotten behind this. They are saying, ‘Let’s do what is best for kids.’”

Positive Developments on Pro-Teacher/Pro-Student Measures in 2016

Posted on by
Reply

26256966There were some notable strong successes on pro-teacher/pro-student issues during the 2016 Indiana legislative session. The Next Generation Hoosier Educators Scholarship (HB 1002) allows the Commission for Higher Education to award college scholarships for up to 200 of the best and brightest future teachers. These students must have graduated in the top 20% of their class and received the top 20th percentile scores on the SAT/ACT exams. Upon graduation, scholarship recipients have the requirement to teach in Indiana for five consecutive years.

While the administration set up the program in HB 1002, the Legislature appropriated $10 million in HB 1001. The Chamber advocated for this program to assist with the potential teacher shortages moving forward. We believe that this legislation is a great first step in recruiting strong teachers into the field as well as helping to raise the profession. Strong teachers lead to strong students, which will eventually lead to strong and talented employees.

Also in the good bucket column is HB 1005, which also sought to assist in the teacher shortage issue by providing career pathways and mentorship opportunities for teachers in Indiana schools. The Chamber stressed that mentorship opportunities can help teachers during their beginning years and have significant application for other professions as well. Mentorship is a key tool in attracting and retaining strong employees in the workforce and it is something that the Chamber thinks could and should be utilized to help with teacher
shortages in specific areas such as STEM and special education.

We also supported language in the bill providing supplemental pay for teachers that take on leadership roles in their schools. Another teacher incentive contained in HB 1005 was the creation of a Dual Credit Teacher Stipend Matching Grant Program for eligible educators who teach dual credit courses and are in the process of obtaining or have finished their master’s degree in that subject area. No appropriation was made this year (likely next year during the budget process).

During conference committee time, Chamber-supported language from SB 334 was added into HB 1005 that would allow for a second application period for voucher students. This way if a student were to change schools during the year, it would ensure that the money truly followed the child – specifically during the second semester. Under previous law, should a student change to a different voucher school (for any reason, including parent’s job relocation, divorce, dropout, expulsion or simply to provide a better educational opportunity or fit for that child), they lose that voucher for the remainder of the school year. By contrast, if a traditional public school student were to transfer to a different traditional public school, the money follows the child for the second semester. The Chamber strongly advocated that no child should be treated any differently based on their school choice.

Opponents argued feebly that the bill was an expansion of the voucher program, but the Chamber stressed that it was merely providing students with fair access to funding for their education and did not change any eligibility requirements. Should a child need to transfer schools – for whatever reason – they should have a right to be educated and have funding follow them appropriately. Language from SB 334 regarding background checks and student safety was also added to the bill calling for a child protection index check requirement to the current system of background checks for new employees of school systems.

Specifically, the language requires that the Department of Child Services must notify a school employer if a potential employee has ever been the subject of a substantiated report of child abuse or neglect, and states that confidentiality agreements between teachers and employers moving forward can no longer protect a former employee regarding any substantiated report of child abuse or neglect.

Education Reform With a Capital ‘R’

Posted on by
Reply

The challenges are no different than those many school districts are facing — unacceptable dropout rates, continually disappointing test scores and an overall environment of "disconnection" between educators and their students.

The solutions for many are to tinker around the edges, adjust a regulation or adopt a policy to try to spark change. While well-intentioned, the results often disapppoint. In an opposite take on the old saying — if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it — education in many places is broke and requires a radical fix.

Implementation won’t begin fully until next year and ultimate results will be years down the road, but let’s give a Denver-area school district kudos for trying. How does doing away with traditional grade levels and strategically involving students in lesson plans grab you for starters? Students will advance when they have proven mastery of that subject. The Christian Science Monitor reports:

The district is training teachers to involve students in the lesson plan in a far greater way than before – the students articulate their goals and develop things such as a code of conduct as a classroom. And when children fall short of understanding the material, they keep working at it. The only "acceptable" score to move on to the next lesson is the equivalent of a "B" in normal grading – hopefully showing proficiency and giving kids a better foundation as they move on to more advanced concepts. Advocates sometimes describe it as flipping the traditional system around so that time, rather than mastery of material, is the variable.

While the idea of "standards-based education," as it’s often known, has been around for a while, the only public district where it’s been tried for any length of time is in Alaska, where the Chugach district – whose 250 students are scattered over 22,000 square miles – went from the lowest performing district in the state to Alaska’s highest-performing quartile in five years in the 1990s, a shift the former superintendent, Richard DeLorenzo, attributes to the new philosophy.

Even before the opening bell, I give a hearty "A" for effort. Read the story here. Let us know what you think.

Are SAT and ACT Tests Too “Old School?”

Posted on by
Reply

According to Inside Higher Ed, the National Association for College Admission Counseling has launched a panel asking colleges to consider dropping SAT and ACT results as admission guidelines:

The panel, in a report to be formally released this week (PDF file), calls on all colleges to consider more systematically whether they really need testing to admit their students. If there is not clear evidence of the need for testing, the commission urges the colleges to drop the requirement and it expresses the view that there are likely more colleges and universities that could make such a change …

Colleges that have conducted in-depth analyses of the value of standardized tests have frequently ended up questioning the tests’ use. For example, the University of California recently studied whether SAT subject tests helped admissions decisions and found — generally — that they do not. Hamilton College, prior to abandoning an SAT requirement in 2006, conducted a five-year experiment being SAT-optional. During that time, the 40 percent of students who didn’t submit SAT scores performed slightly better at Hamilton — a highly competitive liberal arts college — than did those who did submit scores. And in a finding consistent with studies at other colleges, Hamilton found that when it went test-optional, it received more applications from students at the top of their high school classes and many more applications from minority students.

Pretty interesting stuff.

Hat tip to Reason Magazine’s blog.