School Accountability Grades Released By IDOE
SYRACUSE — School accountability letter grades for the 2017-18 school year were released by the Indiana Department of Education Wednesday afternoon, Nov. 14. This year, since there are differences in the federal and state accountability equations and standards, IDOE also released federal accountability grades for the 2017-18 school year.
From the state, Wawasee Community School Corporation received a C grade as a corporation. Wawasee High School received a B, while North Webster Elementary and Wawasee Middle School each received a C. Milford School and Syracuse Elementary each received a D grade. Letter grades were the same for federal with the exception of WHS receiving a C and WMS receiving a D. A corporation grade was not issued at the federal level.
For both the state and federal levels, a complicated formula is used to assign letter grades. The state system utilizes student performance and growth, taken from ISTEP+ results, for elementary and middle schools. The federal system for elementary and middle schools uses student performance and growth, too, and also English language proficiency progress and addressing chronic absenteeism.
On the high school level, the state system utilizes student growth and performance along with multiple factors such as the graduation rate and college and career readiness. The federal system for high school uses growth, the graduation rate, achievement, college and career readiness and English language proficiency progress.
Wawasee administrators have made it clear they are not particularly fond of ISTEP+ because of the glitches, confusion about how to answer certain questions and other issues. Since accountability letter grades utilize ISTEP+ results heavily, administrators don’t feel an accurate assessment of student progress is being shown. They are hopeful the new ILEARN state assessment being administered this school year for grades three through eight will provide more accurate results.
In 1999, the Indiana General Assembly passed Public Law 221-199 creating a performance-based accountability system. In response to the legislation, the State Board of Education, IDOE and the Education Roundtable collaborated during the next two years to establish the administrative rules outlining the state’s accountability system. Rules were in place by the end of 2001 and the new metrics established in 2015 went into effect beginning with the assessment of the 2015-16 school year.