INDIANAPOLIS — To increase transparency around Indiana students’ education performance, new report cards issued by the state education department are now required to be posted on nearly every Hoosier school’s website.
Beginning Oct. 15, each public and state-accredited non-public school must post online a performance report from the Indiana Department of Education (IDOE) that shows how its students are doing on academic and other measures.
The report cards replace the state’s previous accountability system in which the state assigned A through F grades to measure a school’s quality. School grades have been effectively suspended since 2018 when Indiana shifted from ISTEP to a new state standardized test and later grappled with the COVID-19 pandemic.
State officials maintain that the new school performance reports will provide additional transparency around key data points, like test results, attendance rates, and career readiness.
The information included in the performance reports covers the 2022-23 and 2023-24 academic years and varies by the grade levels served by a school. High school report cards will also highlight per-student funding, along with average composite SAT scores, as well as graduation and non-waiver graduation rates. Additionally, secondary school performance reports will provide the percentage of students who enrolled in and passed any of the following: an Advanced Placement exam, International Baccalaureate exam, dual credit course, or Cambridge International exam.
All schools are also required to compare their data to those serving similar grade bands. Schools with high rates of students who receive free or reduced lunch additionally provide a comparison of their metrics to schools with a similar population. Much of the data for the new report cards is already available to the public, though, and was drawn from the Indiana Graduates Prepared to Succeed (GPS) dashboard, which the state released earlier this year. State lawmakers required the performance reports earlier this year in House Enrolled Act (HEA) 1591.
Even so, the A-F school grades are still required in the state code. Under the new law, however, the state education department will issue “null” grades for each school for the 2022-23 and 2023-24 school years, as it has since 2018.
Under the new law, IDOE is also charged with providing the Indiana General Assembly with future accountability recommendations that can be used in subsequent years. Those are due to state lawmakers by Dec. 1, 2024.
A school performance report for Jeffersonville High School, located in southern Indiana’s Greater Clark County Schools district, was posted on the school’s website. As of Oct. 15, most Indiana schools are required to post the report cards online. (Screenshot from Jeffersonville High School’s website)
