Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
ISTEP scores for individual school corporations recently were released by the state, but depending on whom you talk to, the scores may or may not give a complete picture of how well each corporation is educating its students.
When Warsaw's assistant superintendent, Dr. Anthony Etienne, unveiled this year's scores to the school board Monday, he said the scores by themselves are "not that significant."
But looked at over a number of years, he said, or in comparison to state and national scores, they can indicate trends or general areas where schools should improve.
Stu Huffman, communications specialist at the Indiana Department of Education, said, "Much of the purpose of ISTEP is to assess the curriculum and assess the teaching strategies as well as how the students are doing."
One problem many people have with ISTEP scores is that they are released by the state in two forms: the criterion referenced test, which shows percentages of students above and below state standards; and the norm-referenced results, which compare local scores with state and national results.
The CRT percentages distributed by the state don't compare the 1999 results to past years; the norm-referenced results released for the 1999 tests don't include the state scores yet. So analyzing the results is difficult, Huffman said.
One way of judging how Warsaw has done over the past three years is to follow classes' progress on the test comparison chart above.
For example, for grade three in 1996, the total battery was 64.4, which is higher than the state score of 60.8. However, three years later, in 1999, those third-graders would be sixth-graders, and the score went down, from 64.4 to 62.9.
Likewise, sixth-graders in 1996 scored 63.4; in 1998, when those sixth-graders were eighth-graders, their scores were down to 58.0.
Scores for eighth-graders in 1996, 64.4, stayed relatively flat two years later when those students were 10th-graders and scored 64.3.
Even analyzing the progress of the same classes through the years is not totally accurate, Huffman said, since it doesn't always compare the same students.
"Indiana averages a 40 percent turnover rate every year," he said.
Percentage-wise, with two exceptions, more than 70 percent of students in Warsaw schools scored above state standards last year.
The exceptions are 62 percent above standard in sixth-grade language arts, and 69 percent above standard in eighth-grade language arts.
But since figures weren't included for past years, trends can't be assessed.
So what do the scores mean?
According to Etienne, Warsaw students compare favorably to state averages and, overall, he said, he sees the trend going up.
"We are not where we want to be but I think we're moving in the right direction," he told the school board Monday.
Superintendent Dr. Lee Harman said the scores don't take into account all the factors that can go into public education.
"The student as worker is a ... variable that's difficult to measure," he said. "If the student is not motivated or has no support, it makes everybody's job tough."
