Op-ed: Schools need quality support to prepare students
The release of the 2017-2018 ISTEP results this week extended a troubling trend: four years since Indiana adopted the more rigorous Indiana College and Career Ready Academic Standards, statewide scores continue to stagnate and gaps along racial and socioeconomic lines persist.
Only 50.7 percent of students in grades 3 through 8 passed both the math and English language arts exam, almost identical results to three years ago. Results are even more sobering in tenth grade, where 33.7 percent of students passed both exams, down nearly three percentage points since the 2014-2015 school year.
While test results are only one measure of success, we know that all students — regardless of race, income, or background — can achieve at high levels. However, black students in grades 3-8 passed ISTEP at less than half the rate of Hoosier students as a whole. In grade 10, only one out of every ten black students passed both exams.
These racial disparities are unacceptable. All students deserve an education that will allow them to choose their own life path. But sadly, these results are what we as a society have come to expect — and accept.
Let me explain. I recently read The New Teacher Project's new report, “The Opportunity Myth,” an in-depth study of students and teachers in five diverse school systems. Among the report’s many findings is that a majority of teachers do not report having high expectations for their students, which results in some groups of students getting less access to strong instruction and assignments with grade-appropriate rigor.
In particular, the report finds that in classrooms where predominantly black or Latinx students have a teacher of a different race or ethnicity, only 35 percent of teachers reported holding high expectations for their students.
I’ve grappled with this finding as I consider the tacit acceptance that has started to become part of our state’s annual ISTEP ritual. Results like these cannot be treated as “the new normal.” They must spur dramatic action, not lowered expectations.
Indeed, there are already schools in our city that are proving it is possible for all students— no exceptions — to rise to meet the highest of expectations.
In Indianapolis’ mayor-sponsored charter schools, black students surpassed the average passing rate for black students statewide, bucking the trend for what society expects from a group of schools serving this demographic.
At Paramount School of Excellence, a mayor-sponsored charter school tucked in Indianapolis’ Brookside neighborhood, over 80 percent of students passed both ISTEP exams. Paramount students, over 88 percent of whom qualify for free or reduced price lunch and over 70 percent of whom identify as students of color, earned a passing rate that exceeds the passing rate for 3-8th graders in Carmel Clay Schools, a suburban district widely recognized for its student achievement.
In Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS), Superintendent Dr. Lewis D. Ferebee has met the need for dramatic improvement with bold action, growing the number of Innovation Network Schools in IPS to 20 this year. As a group, Innovation Network Schools, which serve black students and low-income students at higher rates than IPS as a whole, have improved more than any other category of schools in Indianapolis over the past two years. This is worth celebrating, even though many of these schools still have a long way to go.
But if we are to transform our education system so that all students are given the opportunity to meet high expectations, all of us must take action.
Since The Mind Trust was founded in 2006, much of our work has focused on supporting the growth of new, high-quality charter schools and Innovation Network Schools. While we will continue supporting educators who seek to launch innovative new school models, our team has realized that existing schools need targeted support to meet our state’s heightened expectations.
To this end, we recently embarked on a new strategy to provide schools within the boundaries of IPS with support that will help them attain and sustain excellence. Through year-long partnerships customized to meet schools’ specific needs, we’re helping schools develop instructional systems that ensure the rigor of classroom instruction matches what students need to know to succeed in the 21st Century. We’re also providing workshops on best practices in data-driven instruction and supporting students who have experienced trauma.
We’re bringing network leaders together to share learnings on the complexities of leading multi-school networks to excellence, and we continue to send at least 20 Indianapolis school leaders each year to Relay Graduate School of Education’s National Principals Academy, a nationally-recognized, year-long Fellowship that several of our city’s most accomplished school leaders have already identified as the best professional development of their career.
These are just a few of the supports we are providing to schools in Indianapolis. They reflect our belief that schools need quality support to prepare students for an ever-changing world.
They reflect our belief that excellence for every student is already possible, and that high expectations for every student can never be surrendered.
And they reflect an urgency to do more than ever before to help educators create the system of schools our city’s children deserve.