More than 2,600 Marion County third graders could be held back a grade because the Indiana State Board of Education and state education bureaucrats have concocted a new scheme that, while it sounds great, could have devastating effects for thousands of Indiana and Indianapolis families.
Let me explain what’s going on.
I know everyone reading this column would agree that students should be able to read at grade level. And I think nearly all of you believe that if a student’s not reading at grade level, then they shouldn’t necessarily be automatically promoted to the next grade.
Next week, Indiana enters a new phase of its efforts at educational reform. It was created with all good intentions, but the implementation of this new reform poses a potential nightmare for tens of thousands of Hoosier families.
I’m talking about the state’s new IRead third grade mandatory reading test.
March 19 to 21, Indiana’s estimated 79,000 third graders in public and private schools, will take IRead; a 70 minute, multiple choice test that evaluates students’ reading comprehension and skills to determine if they’re reading at their third grade level.
Unlike ISTEP, which measures how well schools and districts are educating students; this new IRead test has direct consequences for third graders.
If they pass, great!
If they don’t, they will find themselves repeating third grade coursework in the 2012-2013 school year.
The Indiana Department of Education (DOE) wants Hoosiers to think that the state Legislature mandated this mandatory third grade reading test in Public Law 109, passed in March 2010. But when I read the actual text of the law the legislature passed by strong bipartisan majorities, I read something totally different.
Public Law 109 ordered the superintendent of public instruction and the State Board of Education to “develop a plan to improve reading skills of students and implement appropriate remediation techniques for students.”
The law also required that plan to include developing “Reading skill standards for grade 1 through grade 3” with “an emphasis on a method for making determinant evaluations by grade 3 that might require remedial action for the student, including retention as a last resort (italics added), after other methods of remediation have been evaluated or used, or both, if reading skills are below the standard.”
The law also requires that any plan that involves possibly holding students back a grade that “appropriate consultations with parents or guardians be part of the plan.”
Public Law 109 also addressed where the money would come from mandating that if the plan would cost school districts money then “the state superintendent shall present those components of the plan to the General Assembly (1) for consideration of the plan; and (2) to determine the amount of any appropriation in the state budget for the state fiscal years beginning in 2011 and 2012 that is necessary to carry out the plan.”
But that’s not what happened in the real world.
IRead may be a state mandate, but the state didn’t provide schools with additional money for the remediation necessary to make sure every third grader can pass this first IRead test.
Interviewed on our WTLC-AM (1310) “Afternoons with Amos” program, DOE officials were very vague on how remediation would work in individual schools. They were also vague about how students would be retained if they didn’t pass IRead.
DOE officials backpedaled when I asked what would happen to a student, who failed IRead, but was doing well enough in their other course work to mandate moving to fourth grade work. The officials implied that the student might be in a fourth grade class, doing fourth grade work, but still doing third grade reading lessons.
And DOE officials told me that students not passing IRead would be officially classified as a “third grade student.”
I know that makes no sense. Listen to the full interview yourself. http://bit.ly/ADpFqv.
DOE officials developed a sample IRead test, but flatly refused to give any indication on how well or poorly African-American students did.
So, being the researcher/columnist I am, I extrapolated possible results, using the benchmark of how third graders did last year on the ISTEP English/Language Arts (ELA) test.
In 2011, 75.5 percent of all Marion County third graders passed ISTEP/ELA. In 2011, 66 percent of African-American third graders statewide passed ISTEP/ELA. In Marion County’s public schools, 66.7 percent of Black third graders passed ISTEP/ELA. Just 60.7 percent of Black IPS third graders passed; 70.9 percent of Black third graders in township schools passed; and 66.7 percent of Black charter third graders passed.
Using ISTEP/ELA as a guide, there could be as many as 2,600 city/county third graders failing IRead. Again using ISTEP performance as a benchmark, the number of Black third graders in the city/county who could fail IRead could run 1,300; half the overall number possibly failing this new state benchmark test.
The group screaming the loudest for kids to not be promoted to the next grade willy nilly is the business community. The Chamber of Commerce, the city and state’s major employers and educational reform groups. But they’ve sat on their hands with the launch of IRead.
When ISTEP began 14 years ago, there was a big publicity push and media hype about the coming tests. Press conferences, TV/radio PSA’s, billboards. Info in utility bills, stories in company newsletters and more.
This time, for an even more critical test, the business community, media (except for Black media) and education reformers have done nothing. No publicity, no hype.
DOE has been just as clueless. As of this column’s deadline, no press releases or materials have been sent to Indiana media. No press conferences, no requests for public service announcements, nothing.
I’ve heard there are lots of schools that have engaged teachers and parents in preparing students for IRead. Others haven’t.
IRead results will be back in a month and we’ll see the impact or wreckage.
And if there’s caustic complaining from the media, Chamber of Commerce and education reformers about the IRead results, remember, they did nothing to help make sure our students succeeded in this high stakes experiment to insure third graders really read at a third grade level.
See ‘ya next week.
You can email comments to Amos Brown at acbrown@aol.com.
