Indianapolis’ hotly debated preschool program cleared its final hurdle Monday when the City-County Council approved spending $4.2 million to send 1,000 poor children to high-quality preschools later this year.
Two bills already have passed the Senate that push the state in the direction of a national test.
Indiana students might be off the hook from a proposal asking they pass a civics test to graduate from high school after a bill to require it was defeated in the state Senate on Tuesday.
Indiana school administrators say they welcome efforts to shorten the standardized test that 450,000 students soon will begin taking, but they say the exam will still take too long.
The move most likely would result in Superintendent of Public Instruction Glenda Ritz, a Democrat, being removed from the position.
IPS would see a 6-percent reduction in state tuition aid by 2017 despite being one of the state’s poorest districts, with more than 75 percent of children coming from families that are poor enough to qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.
Indiana’s schools superintendent says a plan is in the works to cut about three hours from the maximum time that students will take the state’s standardized tests.
Indiana legislative leaders said they’re prepared to ram through legislation to make the state’s ISTEP test shorter, but they won’t consider Superintendent Glenda Ritz’s proposal to pause the school grading system for one year.
“A number of schools” reported freezing issues Thursday during the test run, which was designed to ensure that the system worked smoothly when the online portion of the standardized test is given to 470,000 Indiana students in the coming weeks.
The State Board of Education will consider a proposal to suspend accountability grades and scrap portions of the ISTEP+ exam as it grapples with concerns about increased testing time for students.
Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruction Danielle Shockey said it wasn’t clear what changes could be made before the first possible day of the testing period arrives on Feb. 25.
The legislation would overturn the current law in which the state's elected superintendent of public instruction – now Democrat Glenda Ritz – automatically chairs the board.
Department of Education data show the total time for administering the ISTEP+ test will more than double for all grades, topping out at 12 hours, 30 minutes for third-graders.
Majority Republicans in the House and Senate are pushing forward with bills to revamp the Indiana Board of Education and strip power from the state superintendent even as Democrats complain the GOP is only playing politics.
Senate Bill 566, authored by Sen. Luke Kenley, R-Noblesville, and Sen. Ryan Mishler, R-Bremen, would halt an effort to create a new ISTEP, instead directing the state to use a national test beginning in the 2016-17 school year.
Tensions continued to flare Monday as the Senate Rules Committee debated and then passed legislation to alter the composition of the Indiana State Board of Education and demote the superintendent as its chair.
Glenda Ritz's supporters protest that Republicans are disenfranchising a state electorate that gave Ritz 57,000 more votes than GOP Gov. Mike Pence received in the same election.
The elected state superintendent of public instruction would lose authority over several areas of education policy under Republican-backed proposals approved Thursday by an Indiana House committee.
An Indiana House committee has advanced a Republican-led proposal for shifting authority over education policy away from the elected state superintendent of public instruction.
A wide-ranging bill discussed Tuesday would give the Indiana State Board of Education authority over testing, standards, student data, state takeovers and teacher evaluation.
