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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowAn updated education data dashboard released this month by the Fairbanks Foundation shows declining teacher retention across Indiana, as well as increases to student suspensions and expulsions, among other trends.
For the first time, the Community Data Snapshot additionally displays academic outcomes and workforce readiness information for Marion County on a school-by-school basis. Users can then sort that data by race, ethnicity and family economic status and other characteristics.
The updated dashboard allows users to explore data by school corporation and compare metrics across school types, including by each district, public charter, Innovation Network, and private school—a feature not available through other online dashboards.
The update comes a little more than two years after the Indianapolis-based Fairbanks Foundation first released the community dashboard in early 2021. Last fall, the Foundation additionally highlighted growing academic achievement gaps in the Indianapolis area between Black and Hispanic students and their white peers—a trend made worse by the pandemic.
Other dashboards curated by the Foundation stretch back more than a decade, with data covering everything from statewide smoking rates to rent-burdened households in Marion County.
Fairbanks Foundation officials said their goal with the dashboard is to improve academic outcomes, especially for Indianapolis students. Doing so, they emphasized, requires decreasing underemployment and addressing the workforce skills gap, increasing access to high-quality pre-k programs, providing more postsecondary training opportunities for students and adults, and attracting and retaining good teachers.
Here’s a look at some of the data highlights in the latest dashboard.
ILEARN scores
ILEARN scores slightly improved from 2021 to 2022, but most Hoosier students still struggle to pass the state standardized tests.
The updated dashboard shows that 20% of Marion County eighth graders passed the ILEARN math assessment in 2022. The state average, on the other hand, shows that 30% of all Hoosier eighth graders passed the exam that same year.
Statewide, 30.6% of students in grades 3-8 passed both the language arts and math portions of the test in 2022. In just Marion County, only 20.2% of students in those grades earned passing scores.
Christ the King Catholic School, a private K-8 school in Indianapolis, recorded the highest ILEARN results on the language arts and math exams for Marion County, with 76.4%, or 172, of the school’s students passing.
High school graduation
In Marion County, 78.3% of students graduated high school on time, without a waiver, in 2022. Including waivers, that percentage jumps to 86.6%. Waivers are given to students who don’t complete postsecondary-readiness competency requirements by the end of their senior year.
Statewide, 83.7% of all students graduated high school without a waiver. Factoring in waivers, just over 89% of Hoosier students graduated on time in 2022.
Teacher retention
From 2021 to 2022, teacher retention in Indiana dropped 7%, according to the dashboard. The data does not necessarily reflect educators who left the teaching profession altogether.
The state education department recorded that 68,205 teachers—84.2% of all educators—were retained in the same school between the 2019-20 and 2020-21 academic years.
But between the 2020-21 and 2021-22 school years, only 77.2%, or 60,156 teachers, stayed in the same school from year to year.
Early childhood education
The state’s On My Way Pre-K program continued to grow in 2022—in both Marion County and across the state. The grant-based program provides access to free pre-kindergarten education for Indiana children from low-income families.
The number of early childhood educators is also on the rise.
In 2021, Indiana recorded 28,186 such educators statewide. That number grew 14% to 32,154 in 2022, according to the data.
Marion County saw an even greater increase in early childhood educators—15.5%—from 6,344 staffed in 2021 to 7,324 in 2022.
Student discipline
The Fairbanks dashboard additionally provides data on student discipline, including in- and out-of-school suspensions, as well as expulsions.
In 2022, 4.5% of all Hoosier students—equal to 45,982 children—received in-school suspension at some point during the school year. That’s up from 20,491 students, 2.1%, in 2021.
Even more students received out-of-school suspensions, however. According to the data, 6.9% of students— or 69,625 children—had to sit out of the classroom for disciplinary reasons last year. That’s a jump from 27,041 students, 2.7%, the year before.
Expulsions saw a slight increase, too.
In 2021, 841 Indiana students were expelled from school. In 2022, schools expelled 2,525 students.
The Indiana Capital Chronicle is an independent, not-for-profit news organization that covers state government, policy and elections.
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Bottom line is that across the state students in Indiana are not learning the skills that will lead to satisfying, prosperous lives. That is not only not a good omen for the future of the students.It bodes ill for our state as well.