Over the last month, a deluge of data has poured out of the Indiana Department of Education concerning Indiana’s public schools, student performance, and teacher effectiveness. Parents, school administrators, researchers, non-profits, and other interested parties will find this data a great resource for various decision-making circumstances. Below are summaries of some of the new data that has been released this month:
Educator Effectiveness
Since the implementation of Indiana RISE, school corporations have been required to observe, rate, and publicize the effectiveness ratings of its teachers. All teachers must be scored on scale of “highly effective,” “effective,” “needs improvement,” or “ineffective”; however, it should be noted that not all schools use the same evaluation criteria. The educator effectiveness data from the 2012-13 school year reports that 87% of Indiana’s teachers scored highly effective or effective.
Four Star Schools
For the 2012-13 Four Star Schools, 311 public schools in the state of Indiana received a 4-star status. To earn a 4-star-status, a school must 1) score within the 25th percentile of ISTEP+ English and ISTEP+ Math of state scores for each grade level tested, 2) score within the 25th percentile of percentage of students passing both ISTEP+ English and ISTEP+ Math, 3) test at least 95% of their students with ISTEP+, 4) score within the 25th percentile of ECA English 10 and ECA Algebra 1 of state scores, 5) score within the 25th percentile of percentage of students passing both ECA English 10 and ECA Algebra 1, and 6) test at least 95% of their students with both ECA exams.
Graduation Rates
The state’s graduation rate for the 2012-13 school year was also released in April. The Indiana graduation rate in 2012 was 88.38%, up from 86.61% in 2011. Of those graduates, 81.72% of students passed their ECA exam and 6.88% graduated with a waiver. Little has changed from the previous year, though Superintendent Glenda Ritz claims that the raw data shows an increase in the number of students graduating without a waiver.
IREAD 3
The IREAD 3 scores continue the trend seen in previous years of growing literacy in Indiana. The IREAD 3 is administered in the spring to every third grade student in order to benchmark literacy levels before students enter the fourth grade. In 2012, 85.58% of third grade public school students passed the IREAD 3. In 2011, the passing rate was 80.07%.
School A-F Accountability
Indiana public schools also received their A-F scores from the State Board of Education for the 2012-2013 school. The rating incorporates student academic growth, graduation rate, and college and career readiness. Beginning with the 2010-11 academic year, the State Board of Education changed the labels for school categories based on student performance from the terms Exemplary, Commendable, Academic Progress, Academic Watch and Academic Probation to the letter grades (A, B, C, D and F).
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