The Indiana Department of Education says results for the state’s standardized test, the ISTEP, are delayed due to issues the exam’s vendor reported as it finalized the data.
The State Department of Education planned to share the 2018 Spring ISTEP results at the state board’s September meeting. That changed this week after the company behind the test, Pearson, told the department a problem with a graph used on a 10th grade math question and some written student responses may have caused issues with the final data.
Department spokesperson Adam Baker says the state is working to re-finalize the results as quickly as possible.
“Whether we have a special session before the state board or whether we bring them before them in October you know, we’re not 100 percent sure," he says. "But that clearly is what we’re looking at is to get these results quickly.”
The department expects only a small number of students are impacted, and Baker says the nature and scale of the issues so far don’t seem wide-reaching.
“Clearly not every item will have to be re-scored and clearly not every student is affected – in fact from what we have been discussing with Pearson it seems like a very small percentage will be affected,” he says.
The board will likely convene for a special meeting to receive the results once they are finalized. Students in third through eighth grade will move to the state’s new test called ILEARN, this school year.
