Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
ISTEP results for this year are in, and many schools in the Kosciusko County area fared better than the state averages. But many schools also fell below state averages in math and English.
The big scores are the results of high school sophomores who passed the ISTEP+ Graduation Qualifying Exam.
The school with the highest percentage of sophomores passing the exam was Manchester High School, with a total of 75.21, ranking it 33rd out of 386 public high schools in the state.
Triton was next, with a total score of 68.69 percent of sophomores passing the test, followed by Wawasee, with 66.32; Warsaw, with 63.28; Whitko, with 62.35; and Tippecanoe Valley, with 55.63.
Statewide, 59 percent of all sophomores passed the GQE.
Students take the exam for the first time when they are in their sophomore year. If they don't pass it, they have several opportunities to take it again by their senior year. They must pass it to graduate or meet requirements for a waiver.
Scores for eighth-graders for the most part changed little from last year. This year's total percentages are: Tippecanoe Valley Middle School - 53.64 percent above state standards in both math and English; Triton Middle School, 65.75 percent above state standards; Manchester, 56.82 percent; Edgewood, 61.84 percent; Lakeview, 60.59 percent; Milford, 58.49 percent; Wawasee, 54.82 percent; and Whitko, 55.63 percent.
State averages for eighth-graders are 56 percent over state standards, and 472 schools were included.
Scores for sixth-graders ranged from a low total score of 37.28 percent at Tippecanoe Valley Middle School scoring above state standards to a high of 65 percent at Atwood Elementary. The rest of the area sixth-graders fell between those two extremes.
Sixth-graders statewide tested at an average of 46 percent. Locally, only Tippecanoe Valley Middle School (37.28 percent), Leesburg Elementary (43.48 percent), Silver Lake Elementary (41.67 percent) and Washington Elementary (44.83 percent) fell below the state average.
There were 698 schools included in the state scoring for sixth-graders.
Third-graders in the area ranged from a high of 88.24 percent at Atwood Elementary who tested above state standards, to a low of 27.59 percent of Silver Lake third-graders scoring above the state standard.
However, the majority of third-graders in the area tested below the statewide average of 56 percent: Madison's total score was 53.37 percent; Akron and South Whitley elementaries each scored a total of 50 percent; and the rest of the schools, in descending order, were: North Webster, 49.45 percent; Jefferson, 46.15 percent; Washington, 42.59; Burket, 42.31; Manchester, 42.03; Pierceton, 41.38; Lincoln, 39.58; Leesburg, 39.34; Mentone, 31.43; and Silver Lake, 27.59.
So what do ISTEP results mean and why should parents be interested in them?
According to Stu Huffman, communications specialist at the Indiana Department of Education, they are simply a means of assessing the curriculum and teaching strategies of a particular school.
The scores don't, Huffman said, take into account specific problems of special education students or kids for whom English is a second language.
Suellen Reed, Indiana's superintendent of public instruction, said ISTEP scores can be used to measure whether or not schools are improving.
For example, she cited the first year the GQE was given, 1997, when 54 percent of sophomores in Indiana passed the test. Now that the number is up to 59 percent, Reed said, 'We think the kids taking the test are taking it more seriously and are doing better.'
