African-American public school students in Indianapolis/Marion County continue to improve their performance in the annual ISTEP tests conducted for third through eighth graders in Indiana’s schools.
The annual analysis of 2012 ISTEP data by PraiseIndy.com and the Recorder reveals that 60.7 percent of African-American students passed their grade’s benchmark ISTEP English/Language Arts (ELA) exams while 62 percent of African-American students passed their grade’s ISTEP Math benchmarks. That’s just a fraction behind the Black statewide ISTEP passing percentage of 61 percent of ELA; but ahead of the passing percentage of 60 percent for Math.
In 2011, 58.3 percent of Black students in the city/county’s public schools passed ISTEP ELA and Math respectively.
PraiseIndy.com and the Recorder analyzed Black ISTEP performance for every school corporation and charter school in both Indianapolis/Marion County and in the nine county suburban area. Criteria was corporations and charters that had at least 50 Black third through eighth graders taking the ISTEP tests in March.
Among the major findings:
• Black students in the Indianapolis Public Schools reported marginal progress in their ISTEP tests with 52.8 percent passing ELA and 55.1 percent passing Math. That’s substantially behind the statewide passing total for Blacks. But IPS’ Black ISTEP results are substantially ahead of 2011 when 50.8 percent passed ELA and 49.6 percent passed Math.
• Of the districts and charters analyized, IPS had the fifth lowest Black ISTEP passing in ELA and the seventh lowest in Math.
• Black students in Indianapolis’ charter schools fared better as 64.3 percent passed ELA and 63.4 percent passed Math.
• Suburban districts and Indianapolis charter schools again led the list where African-American students excelled best in the 2012 ISTEP.
Another positive story of Black achievement in the 2012 tests occurred at the Flanner House Charter School. In May, Flanner House was blasted by local media because their third graders had the lowest IRead test scores in the state. But those same third graders knocked it out of the park in ISTEP with 89.3 percent passing English/Language Arts, one of the top results in Indiana.
Overall, Flanner House’s ISTEP results ranked them 16th best among Black students in ELA and 11th among Blacks in passing Math.
In the English/Language Arts tests, Blacks in Carmel-Clay schools scored highest with 88.9 percent passing; followed by Charles Tindley Charter (85.1 percent), Brownsburg schools (82.5 percent), Challenge Foundation Academy Charter (79.1 percent), Christel House Academy (77.4 percent), Indianapolis Math & Science West (76.1 percent), Indiana Math & Science North (75.6 percent), Andrew J. Brown Academy (74.6 percent), Westfield-Washington (74.3 percent and Hamilton Southeastern (74.1 percent).
In the Math tests, Blacks in Charles Tindley scored the highest passing scores at 90.7 percent, followed by Carmel-Clay (85.6 percent); Christel House (85.5 percent), Brownsburg (82.9 percent); Speedway (80.8 percent), Avon (79.9 percent), Mt. Vernon Community (79.5 percent), KIPP (79.4 percent), Hamilton Southeastern (78.1 percent) and Challenge Academy (78.1 percent).
The Indianapolis Project School, a five-year-old mayor sponsored charter school had the lowest Black passing percentage in the 2012 ISTEP of any Indianapolis area school district or charter. Only 32.6 percent of Black students at The Project School passed ISTEP ELA and just 25 percent passed Math. The schools ‘poor ISTEP performance among Blacks has been going on for three straight years.
Deputy Mayor for Education Jason Kloth refused to comment on The Indianapolis Project School’s poor ISTEP performance among African-Americans saying, “ISTEP is an important measure of student academic performance. However, it cannot be the only measure by which we as a community hold schools accountable. To determine how well mayor-sponsored charter schools are performing academically, our office will consider proficiency on ISTEP+ in addition to other measures such as individual student growth, (and) the state’s A-F model.”
Several other charters are slightly above The Project School at the bottom for poorest Black ISTEP performance. In ELA, Imagine East (42.6 percent) and Imagine West (45.7 percent) continued their years of substandard performance by their Black students. Along with the new Hoosier Virtual Academy, the online charter school (51.5 percent).
In Math, Hoosier Virtual Academy ranks near the bottom (38.5 percent) along with Andrew Academy (43.1 percent), the former St. Andrew/St. Rita School and the two Imagine Schools (East 43.1 percent/West 47.5 percent).
Our analysis also discovered strong disparities of Black academic performance on ISTEP between the township and IPS schools.
In English/Language Arts at only one township school, Valley Mills Elementary in Decatur Township did Blacks scores lower than 40 percent passing (38.9 percent). In all other township schools more than half of Blacks in grades three through eight passed ISTEP ELA.
Math was a tougher subject for Blacks as at six township schools, two each in Decatur, Lawrence and Perry townships, between 40 percent and 50 percent of Blacks passed. All other township schools had a majority or more of Blacks passing ISTEP Math.
In ELA, IPS had the schools with the lowest percentage of Blacks passing ISTEP ELA. Lowest was School 31 (24.4 percent), then Howe (25 percent), Arlington (26.7 percent), Emma Donnan (27.8 percent), Washington (28.4 percent) and Northwest (28.8 percent).
In Math, The Project School had the lowest percentage of Blacks passing (25 percent), followed by these IPS schools- School 57 (31.3 percent), School 69 (32.2 percent), Key Learning Center (33.3 percent), Northwest (34.4 percent) and School 31 (35 percent).
