SOUTH BEND — This morning the Indiana Department of Education released the 2015 ISTEP scores.

Scores have dropped drastically from a year before across the board. While this is what everyone expected, the numbers are hard to see.

Statewide only slightly more than half of Indiana Students taking the ISTEP tests last year passed both the language arts and math portions — 53 percent.

That number is well below the 74 percent that passed in 2014.

Education leaders say these lower numbers were expected because this was a new test with more rigorous standards. It was a longer test and you might remember over the past year this test was littered with controversy for its technical and scoring problems.

South Bend shows a sharp drop from last year — 33 percent of students passed the language arts and math portions this year compared with 59 percent last year.

In all, 87 percent of students taking the ISTEP passed in 2014 compared to just 72 percent this year.

Now the test scores are tied to teacher pay and bonuses. So this could be worrisome for many teachers in our area. But this morning lawmakers at the statehouse say they will fast-track a bill that won’t punish teachers this year for low ISTEP scores.

Source: WSBT