Ritz visits schools, talks about ISTEP scores
WESTFIELD, Ind. (WISH) – The Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction, Glenda Ritz, toured schools on Friday.
Ritz spend part of Friday morning touring Oak Trace Elementary School. The school’s principal guided Ritz through the halls and to several classrooms allowing Ritz the opportunity to talk with students and teachers.
She said, “I look for several things when I visit a school. I look for climate and safety of the students and then I look for student engagement.”
Ritz said she was pleased with what she saw at Oak Trace.
“Great school! We have a great school here.” Ritz added, “One thing I can tell you for sure is that we have a lot of reading going on in this school and I’m pretty excited about that.”
Ritz also toured Hamilton Southeastern High school on Friday afternoon.
The superintendent’s visits came days after the state released the 2015 ISTEP scores, an exam used to evaluate students, teachers and schools. The results are the lowest the state has seen in five years.
In 2015, 53.5 percent of students passed both the Mathematics and English Language Arts sections. Sixty-one percent passed the mathematics section and 67.3 percent passed the English Language Arts sections.The scores are down significantly from 2014, when 74.7 percent of students passed both sections.
The Department of Education said the most recent results are not comparable to previous school years, since this is the first test based on new, more rigorous standards.
Ritz said, “It’s brand new, over new standards, so you actually can’t compare the results to the last year’s results. They are totally brand new. We’re measuring benchmarks for college and career readiness. And so with that we have our benchmarks established now for the first test and we’re going to be moving forward. I’m looking forward to seeing the growth.”
Ritz also released this statement in response to the results:
“After years of legislative changes at both the state and federal level, our schools were asked once again to implement new standards and subject students to a new assessment without time to transition. The 2015 ISTEP+ results have established a new baseline for Indiana’s progress towards college and career ready benchmarks, and I want to thank our students, educators and administrators for their hard work during such a challenging school year. I look forward to seeing student growth towards these new, more rigorous benchmarks moving forward.
“My top priority is the educational, social, and emotional well-being of Hoosier students. That is why I believe that is it time for Indiana to move away from the costly, lengthy, pass/fail ISTEP+ assessment. The one-size-fits-all high stakes approach of the ISTEP+ needs to end. Instead, Indiana should move towards a streamlined, individualized, student-centered assessment that provides students, families and educators with quick feedback about how a student is performing and how they have grown during a school year.
“Moving forward, I will work with the General Assembly to oversee the development of this assessment so we can better serve each individual student’s needs. In addition, as the Chair of the State Board of Education, I will recommend action to ensure that each school’s accountability grade is determined by meaningful measures and not just by test scores.”