A Center for Business and Economic Research report found a “more equitable and informative assessment of performance" of Indiana's schools.
The center at Ball State University says that, unlike rankings based solely on test scores or graduation rates — which usually favor more affluent school districts — this report isolates a school’s performance from student socioeconomic backgrounds.
Michael Hicks, center director and co-author of the study, said this “value-added” ranking puts schools in Gary and Carmel on equal footing for comparison.
“What we're trying to do is to understand not what the test store scores are at the school, but what it is that the school is doing that would make performance better?” Hicks said.
The report shows results from schools that are typically left out of rankings. Some poorer corporations, such as schools in Crawford County, are doing well, Hicks said.
“Anybody who's an educator like I am knows that if you got a classroom full of kids who were engaged, they had a good night's sleep, they had a full meal in their belly, they're there to learn, they have high family expectations of learning,” Hicks said, “That's an easy classroom to teach.”
The rankings look at standardized test scores in third and eighth grade, as well as SAT college-ready benchmarks for high schoolers.
For third and eighth graders, Monroe CountyCommunitySchool Corporation is in line with where it should be, Hicks said.
“Being average is okay,” Hicks said. “What you're saying is, you're about where you should be, given the students that you have. That's not a condemnation.”
But for college readiness, Monroe County schools rise to the top 20 percent of corporations.
“They're probably focusing on the whole student at the end of their educational experience, rather than focusing on high performance at each of the intermediate benchmarks,” Hicks said. “When you see a school that's doing average in third and eighth grade but then popping up to lead the pack in 11th grade college readiness, then I think you got to really applaud what that school corporation is doing.”
Hicks said parents could use these rankings to understand where to send their children to school. Many families want their kids in top districts, but that’s not always possible. But in Hicks’ report, parents can see the value that each school corporation adds to students’ outcomes.
“If a school is really going to pull your child along, push them to greater learning, then that's a place you might want to consider,” Hicks said. “I think this opens up the geography of choice to more families to look at schools.”
For educators, this is also a useful tool to see exactly how well they’re doing, Hicks said.
“A third goal would be for legislators to know that the complex formulas applied is not funding poor schools enough to close the gap between them and high performing schools,” Hicks said. “So, this opens up the door to a lot of other things that the Indiana Department of Education should be studying in order to help policymakers, the legislature and the governor's staff, to make better state policy about education.”
This statistical technique dates to the ‘70s, Hicks said.
“This is the best way, or some version of this, is the best way that Indiana could be judging her K-12 schools,” Hicks said. “We should be doing it for every school.”
