SYRACUSE — After a delay of several weeks due to resolving some technical issues, spring 2018 ISTEP+ results were finally released to the public Wednesday afternoon, Oct. 3, by the Indiana Department of Education. Results had originally been planned for release in August but were then delayed due to some graphing and image problems that …read more.

WARSAW—Due to the upcoming ISTEP test, Warsaw Community High School will be modifying its schedule to best meet the needs of students during the testing window. ISTEP testing begins the week of Feb. 26, and goes until March 9. Students will test with their classroom teachers. This means testing in math, English and biology will …read more.

SYRACUSE — School accountability letter grades for the 2016-17 school year were officially released publicly Wednesday afternoon, Oct. 4, by the Indiana Department of Education. Locally, two schools in the Wawasee Community School Corporation improved their letter grades compared to the previous school year, two schools remained the same and one was a grade lower. …read more.

SYRACUSE — Each year the Indiana Department of Education assigns letter grades to public schools in the state. For the most part, the grades assigned are based on ISTEP+ results and growth.

SYRACUSE — Some Wawasee Community School Corp. teachers are receiving performance grants from the Indiana Department of Education.

WARSAW — The Indiana Department of Education released the school letter grades early this week based on the 2015-2016 ISTEP testing. Lincoln Elementary received an A. Claypool Elementary School, Eisenhower Elementary School, Harrison Elementary School, Leesburg Elementary School, Warsaw Community High School, Edgewood Middle School, Washington Elementary School and Jefferson Elementary School received Bs. Madison …read more.

WARSAW — Local ISTEP+ scores continue to drop this year. The scores were released on Thursday, Nov. 17. This is the final year that Indiana will use ISTEP+ scoring. This change is occurring after a bill signed by Governor Mike Pence earlier this year that will end the use of this type of scoring by …read more.

By HOUSE SPEAKER BRIAN C. BOSMA As the Speaker of the Indiana House, I announced some lofty goals for this year’s short legislative session on Organization Day last November. Tackling road and bridge funding issues, protecting and promoting Indiana’s teachers and students, curbing our state’s illegal drug epidemic and replacing the ISTEP test all topped …read more.

KOSCIUSKO COUNTY — Local schools are in celebration mode following a decision yesterday, Tuesday, March 22, by Indiana Governor Mike Pence to sign House Bill 1395, eliminating the ISTEP+ by summer, 2017. “I’m happy ISTEP as we know it will be retired,” Wawasee School Corporation Superintendent Dr. Tom Edington said. “I’m sorry that it didn’t …read more.

INDIANAPOLIS — Governor Mike Pence joined teachers and students at Eagle Elementary School, Zionsville, yesterday, Tuesday, March 22, to sign House Enrolled Act 1395, which eliminates the ISTEP test, effective July 1, 2017. The bill, authored by Rep. Bob Behning, also establishes a 23-member panel to study alternatives to ISTEP and requires members be appointed …read more.

WARSAW — Warsaw Community Schools continue to move forward academically and technologically. At the board’s regular work session, held Tuesday evening, March 8, Warsaw Community High Schol social studies teacher Jeff Grose updated the board on the new high school social studies curriculum. The school has chosen Pearson, largely because of its integration of technology along …read more.

KOSCIUSKO COUNTY — Earlier this week, the Indiana state senate passed House Bill 1395, which does away with the ISTEP beginning in 2017. The Evansville Courier and Press reports the bill still needs to go to Governor Mike Pence’s desk where, if signed, it will eliminate the standardized test that has been at the center of much controversy …read more.

INDIANAPOLIS — Today, the Indiana House of Representatives and Indiana Senate passed final versions of SB 200 and HB 1003. Collectively, these bills will hold schools, teachers and communities harmless for an expected drop in ISTEP+ scores for the 2014-15 school year, as Indiana made the transition to college and career ready academic standards. The …read more.

SYRACUSE — Checking grades for student-athletes had been done every 12 weeks, or once each trimester. But it was determined that system may not be fair to some athletes, so a review was done.

By ALEX BROWN Multimedia Journalist, Inside Indiana Business INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Glenda Ritz outlined her 2016 legislative agenda Monday and a transition from the ISTEP+ test is among her top priorities. Ritz is also focusing on reversing the state’s teacher shortage and expanding pre-K infrastructure. Ritz’s agenda focuses on holding schools …read more.

AKRON — With the announcement of the spring, 2015, ISTP+ scores earlier this week, many Indiana school corporations are not pleased with the results of the new standards. Despite this, Tippecanoe Valley Schools fared well overall, according to Superintendent Brett Boggs. Boggs gave a school-by-school breakdown of the corporation’s results, noting that Akron Elementary fared well. Boggs …read more.

SOUTH BEND — This morning the Indiana Department of Education released the 2015 ISTEP scores.

SYRACUSE — Delayed by nearly a month, 2014-15 ISTEP+ results were finally released to the public Wednesday morning, Jan. 6, by the Indiana Department of Education. The delay was caused by more test rescore requests from parents than originally anticipated.

By SKIP BROWN Communications Director INDIANAPOLIS ― Members of the Indiana Senate Republican Caucus announced their legislative agenda today, Tuesday, Jan. 5, as they met at the Statehouse for the start of the General Assembly’s 2016 legislative session. Senate President Pro Tem David Long (R-Fort Wayne) said Senate Republicans will advance a host of issues …read more.

INDIANAPOLIS — Today, Wednesday, Dec. 23, the Indiana Department of Education closed its investigation into an anonymous allegation regarding the scoring processes of CTB McGraw-Hill. In closing the report, the department also released the analysis of independent assessment experts regarding the scoring process used by CTB McGraw-Hill during the 2015 ISTEP+ scoring window. The analysis …read more.

MIDDLEBURY — As a mom and now a political candidate for the Indiana State Senate seat in district 12, many of you know my concerns regarding the state of education in Indiana. Today I want to express my frustration with the entire process of testing our students. As a taxpayer I am fully aware that I, along with fellow Hoosier taxpayers, paid for the almost one hundred million dollar four-year contract with CTB/McGraw-Hill.

SYRACUSE — During the regular monthly meeting of the Wawasee school board Tuesday, Dec. 8, in Syracuse, the board heard a very brief update on the status of the construction of the new Syracuse Elementary School on Kern Road. Bob Lahrman, director of support services, gave the update.

This week, numerous school corporation superintendents have spoken out over an age-old test utilized to not only measure elementary, middle school and early high school student’s growth and achievement, but to determine the effectiveness of a corporation’s teaching staff. The past few years have been incredibly rocky ones for CTB-McGraw Hill, the company responsible for …read more.

By ANDREA NEAL Adjunct Scholar and Columnist, Indiana Policy Review; Middle School Language Arts/History Teacher, St. Richard’s Episcopal School, Indianapolis INDIANAPOLIS — It is time for Indiana lawmakers to scrap ISTEP. The test is nothing but trouble and it is taking valuable time away from classroom learning. During the two years I served on the …read more.

Cathy Strycker’s third grade class at Triton Elementary School took a brain break from ISTEP testing this week and worked out to GoNoodle.

By DONNA BURROUGHS, EdS Superintedent, Triton Community School Corporation Triton Elementary celebrated pajama day on Thursday, April 23. PJ day helped remind students to relax and get plenty of rest before taking the state ISTEP tests the week of Monday, April 27 through Friday, May 1. Good luck to Triton Elementary.

During her report to the Wawasee school board at the board’s regular monthly meeting Tuesday evening, Joy Goshert, director of instruction and curriculum, informed the board Wawasee will host a LearnZillion design workshop. LearnZillion is an online resource to help with learning in math and language arts. Lisa Ernsberger and Kristi Harris, Wawasee teachers, have …read more.

Despite a period of turbulence and constant change, students and staff at Warsaw Community Schools have nearly completed the first section of the ISTEP+ test. According to Chief Accountability Officer Dani Barkey, though the first part of the test is successfully coming to a close this week, many changes at the state level have created …read more.

ISTEP+ has been plagued with difficulties especially the last few years and those difficulties are apparently not a thing of the past. During the regular monthly meeting of the Wawasee School Board Tuesday evening in Syracuse, the board heard a report from Joy Goshert, director of instruction and curriculum, about concerns with online ISTEP+ testing. …read more.

By DANIEL ALTMAN Media Contact, Indiana Superintendent’s Office Indiana’s Superintendent of Public Instruction Glenda Ritz has announced that the Indiana Department of Education has reduced the length of the 2015 spring ISTEP+ by over three hours for all Indiana students in all grades. In addition, Superintendent Ritz announced that the Department of Education would seek …read more.

When school letter grades are issued by the Indiana Department of Education, school administrators have let it be known frequently they don’t feel the letter grading system is fair and consistent. So beginning with the last school year, the Wawasee Community School Corp. began putting together its own letter grades. During Tuesday evening’s regular monthly …read more.

By KARA BROOKS Office of Governor Mike Pence Governor Mike Pence signed Executive Order 15-04 to shorten the length of the 2015 ISTEP test, which will be administered in March. “Doubling the length of the 2015 ISTEP test is unacceptable and requires an immediate solution,” said Governor Pence. “As soon as I learned of this issue, I …read more.

By SCOTT BACKUS Principal, Tippecanoe Valley Middle School Let me begin by stating openly and honestly that I was the student that I’m going to speak about in this article! I also believe many of the adults I’m speaking to here were just like me. Let me explain. I played “school” really well. I went …read more.

Indiana Department of Education made a multi-million dollar contract with a testing company in an effort to digitize ISTEP+ testing, with less than commendable results. ISTEP+ is a statewide mandatory test, given to children in grades three to eight. According to the IDOE website, the testing has several purposes. “The purpose of the Indiana Statewide …read more.

The Indiana Department of Education released statewide and local 2014 ISTEP+ scores today. The test is distributed to students in third to eighth grade. Statewide, 80.7 percent of Indiana students passed the English and language arts portion of the test, an increase from the 79.5 percent of students who passed in 2013. A total of …read more.

In the legal notices section of this week’s The Mail-Journal, readers are encouraged to view the 2013 annual performance report of the Wawasee Community School Corp. It is essentially a “snapshot” of the corporation and contains data pulled by the Indiana Department of Education obtained from multiple reports submitted to IDOE. An annual performance report …read more.

Indiana Department of Education released results of the spring 2013 ISTEP+ test to the media last week. ISTEP+ is administered to students in grades three through eight in Indiana public schools. Results for the Wawasee Community School Corporation show areas of concern — particularly for grades five through seven in English/language arts — but math …read more.

Based on data released today from the Indiana Department of Education, Warsaw Community School Corporation has reported growth in both math and language arts at almost all grade levels. This year a total of 482,000 students completed the ISTEP examination. However, according to officials, 78,000 students were online taking the exam when server issues caused …read more.

The Indiana Department of Education says schools and parents will receive their spring ISTEP results today. According to Inside INdiana Business, nearly 1,400 scores will be invalidated because of computer problems while the tests were administered earlier this year (see related). Parents are expected to receive a code for online access to their children’s information. The …read more.

Following the statewide problems associated with the 2013 CTB McGraw-Hill’s administration of the ISTEP+ this past spring, the Indiana Department of Education has released findings as to the validity of the test results of schools affected by continual server interruptions. Though many schools systems, such as Warsaw Community School Corporation, reported a belief that the …read more.

The Indiana Department of Education is planning to release findings today on the validity of spring ISTEP results. The state has been investigating issues associated with test administrator CTB/McGraw-Hill LLC that caused widespread glitches that invalidated This year a total of 482,000 students completed the ISTEP examination. However, according to officials, 78,000 students were online …read more.

During the Warsaw Community School Corporation Regular Board Meeting last night, Amy Sivley, chief accountability officer with the school corporation, presented board members with the concluding data for IREAD-3, a literacy test given to third grade students within the district. The data included students who entered into summer remediation and retesting after not passing the …read more.

Warsaw Community Schools have approved a traditional calendar for the 2014-2015 academic school year. According to Dave Hoffert in a school board work session last week, the school released a survey for staff, parents and community members to provide their input as to which scenario was preferred. After reviewing the information provided, the school came to …read more.

The Indiana Department of Education announced preliminary damages that it will seek from CTB McGraw-Hill related to ISTEP+ interruptions experienced by schools throughout the state this spring. These amounts are not final, and may well grow as results are reviewed by a third party and additional information is gained. Warsaw Community Schools is among many …read more.

The Indiana Senate Commission on Education will hold a public hearing Friday afternoon focusing on technical issues that arose during last month’s ISTEP test. It will feature executives from the test administrator, California-based CTB/McGraw-Hill LLC, plus members of the Indiana General Assembly and Legislative Services Agency. “It’s important we gain a complete understanding of what …read more.

Warsaw Community Schools is among many school districts throughout the state of Indiana appealing to have student’s ISTEP results reviewed following a server problem that created delays during test taking this year. This year a total of 482,000 students completed the ISTEP examination. However, according to officials, 78,000 students were online taking the exam when …read more.

Lincoln Elementary School staff participated in a celebration Friday, March 1, to motivate students taking the ISTEP+ test this week. Staff and students performed for the entire building with poems, dancing and songs, encouraging and inspiring students to “Rock the Test!” Pictured are two staff members just before their performance. 

As schools across the state of Indiana begin to prepare for ISTEP+ testing over the next few weeks, one local school is helping students become more confident for the test. According to Lincoln Elementary School Principal Kathy Snider, the school will be providing students with ISTEP+ preparation today from 2:45 p.m. to approximately 3:15-3:20 p.m. The …read more.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Scores released Tuesday show Indiana students made modest gains on the state’s ISTEP tests this past school year and one South Bend school improved enough to avert a state takeover. The state Education Department said that of the 500,000 students taking the standardized tests, 71 percent passed both the language arts and …read more.