Marion Chronicle Tribune: State tells students to take test seriously

Whoa! Forget the carrot, break out the stick!

State tells students to take test seriously
The Indianapolis Star
State education officials want Indiana high school students to take standardized tests as seriously as their teachers and principals do.

That could mean adding a new way to categorize statewide exam results and including test scores on transcripts under proposals unveiled Wednesday by the State Board of Education.

Hoosier high school students now take exams at the end of certain classes, and those results would show up on the transcripts that college admissions counselors see. Only 20 percent of students passed an end-of-course exam in Algebra I last spring.

Also, a proposed new category for ISTEP-Plus, the state's mandatory accountability exam, would show how many students in Grades 3-10 mastered the test rather than passed it.

"We only kind of gauge ISTEP on how many pass or fail, not how well you pass," said Commissioner Stan Jones, who floated the plan at a State Board of Education meeting Wednesday. "For a lot of kids, it's not a challenge. There's no incentive to do better than passing."

An added "proficient" category on Indiana Statewide Testing for Educational Progress-Plus wouldn't change the way schools are judged under state and federal accountability laws. But it would be in line with a national standardized test.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress is the only state-by-state comparison of academic progress. NAEP helps federal education officials validate the quality of state tests.

The percentage of students who master the national test generally is lower than the share who pass state tests such as ISTEP-Plus.

For instance, 30 percent of Indiana eighth-graders scored well enough in math on the national test to be considered proficient in 2005. Meanwhile, 72 percent of Hoosier eighth-graders passed the math ISTEP-Plus the same year.

A proficient score is "a better indication that not only did they pass the test, they're doing well enough to be on track with college," Jones said.

State leaders worry that too many Hoosiers go to college unprepared for the workload. Nearly a quarter of freshmen at Indiana's public colleges and universities need remedial help with lessons they should have learned in high school, according to an Indiana University study last year.

A third part of Jones' proposal would require high school seniors to take math, which didn't go over well with some education board members.

ichael Pettibone, a board member and school superintendent from Monroe, recommended incentives for high school seniors to take math, rather than penalties.

"What our challenge is, is to provide opportunities to make the senior year better . . . rather than another rule," he said.

The proposals would need approval from the state education board, but members did not vote at their meeting Wednesday.

Originally published March 8, 2007