Researchers from Harvard and Stanford ranked Indiana’s reading recovery as one of the top in the nation — early evidence the state’s “science of reading” reforms are improving literacy rates for Hoosier children.
The Education Scorecard, released last week, ranked Indiana sixth out of 35 states studied for reading gains made between 2022 and 2025.
The report used state and national assessment data for 35 million students enrolled in grades 3-8 nationwide to chart how well states are recovering from what researchers term the “learning recession.”
Researchers found the average Hoosier student performed 0.09 grade equivalents above their 2022 level — still 0.31 grade equivalents behind 2019.
Math gains were more modest: Indiana ranked 29th out of 38 states, with the average student 0.04 grade equivalents above their 2022 levels yet half a grade level below 2019 rates.
The divergence is unsurprising to Craig J. Willey, a professor of mathematics education and urban teacher education for Indiana University School of Education in Indianapolis.
“We’ve been hyper focused on literacy for decades, and math was a secondary focus,” Willey told the Capital Chronicle.
Indiana Secretary of Education Katie Jenner said the report’s data reinforced the need for reading and math to be urgent priorities for schools.
“While it is important that we celebrate the continued progress we are seeing in Indiana – particularly in literacy – we are also keeping our foot on the gas pedal,” Jenner said in a statement.
Evidence for ‘science of reading’
Researchers credit “science of reading” reforms in Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee and Washington, D.C., for improvements in those states, though other states attempting early literacy reforms did not see the same gains.
Still, the report found no gains in states where lawmakers rejected the return to phonics instruction, such as California, Georgia and Massachusetts.
“Evidence-based reading reform may be a necessary but insufficient path to improvement,” researchers conclude.
Poor literacy rates inspired Hoosier lawmakers to adopt “science of reading” reforms in 2023, requiring schools to incorporate phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension in early literacy instruction.
They expanded on these reforms the following year by requiring schools to administer the statewide IREAD assessment a year earlier in second grade, so schools can offer targeted support to students who don’t pass the exam.
Students who do not pass the exam by third grade should be retained in that grade level, with some exceptions.
Willey said these policies appear to be working, but he cautioned against “over-legislating” school policy based on limited data.
“We don’t want Indiana children to just pass a test or merely survive,” he said. “We want them to thrive, which I think is more in line with many of the moves made by the Indiana Department of Education and state Legislature to consider our youth future holistically. What are they going to do post-third grade, post-high school?”
How to improve math achievement?
Willey said schools could use similar strategies deployed in early literacy instruction to math instruction, such as math coaches, specialists and early screening to identify students who need extra support to excel.
Direct instruction—when a teacher demonstrates how to solve an equation, so students can practice on their own—could help too, Willey said, but instruction should also help students persevere through challenging problems.
Mike Steele, a professor and chair of the Department of Educational Studies at Ball State University, said direct instruction has its place in the classroom.
But data shows this method “does not build a durable, conceptual understanding of mathematics, such that when students are confronted with a problem that involves mathematics in the wild, they have the tools and the confidence to say, ‘Oh, I know what’s going on here. I have some mathematical tools that I can mobilize to do this,” he said.
Other contributing factors to the state’s lackluster math achievement include rapidly changing state standards — twice in the last six years, with another revision on the horizon, Steele said — and poor retention of math teachers.
“It’s disruptive to regular cycles of curricular adoption and review, and it puts more of a focus of teachers’ limited time in the classroom on understanding a new set of standards rather than investing in improving their ability to teach mathematics.”
Steele said turnover among math teachers — many quit early into their careers — combined with the erosion of standards for licensing teachers lowered the bar for math teachers to enter the profession, resulting in unprepared teachers who need extra support to be effective.
“I’ve never seen more mathematics teachers leaving the classroom in the middle of a school year than I have the past several years,” he said.
The problem is so acute Steele said he volunteered his own time to train a new teacher in his home district.
“There are significant learning gains when students have three consecutive years of a highly qualified, well-prepared teacher in the classroom,” he said, “so if in any of that three-year stretch we’re having a teacher leave the classroom and a new, uncertified teacher coming in to fill a seat, or a long-term substitute, then we’ve reset that achievement right back to square one for those students.”
‘Learning recession’ predates pandemic
Student progress in reading and math started to decline across the U.S. in 2013, a trend compounded by pandemic-era school closures.
Researchers note the average annual learning loss recorded in the U.S. in the three years prior to the pandemic was equal to the pandemic years — contrary to conventional wisdom.
Today, researchers found, performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress exam is at its lowest level nationally since 1990 for eighth graders, while fourth graders are scoring at pre-2003 levels.
“The pandemic was the mudslide that followed seven years of erosion in student achievement,” Harvard University Professor Tom Kane, faculty director for the Center for Education Policy Research, said in a news release. “The ‘learning recession’ started a decade ago, after policymakers switched off the early warning system of test-based accountability and social media took over children’s lives.”
Still, Willey said measuring student achievement across decades is tricky due to evolving standards measured by state and national assessments.
“We’ve been tests, we’ve been changing standards,” he said. “We’ve been changing how we ask teachers to respond to those new tests and new standards, so that it’s hard to say that we have consistent data across these decades.”
How did districts perform?
Researchers singled out districts like East Chicago, Frankfort, East Noble, Duneland, MSD of Southwest Allen County and Middlebury for outperforming similar districts in math and reading performance.
The report also identified Goshen, Huntington, LaPorte, Plymouth and Sunman-Dearborn for strong student achievement in math, as well as Fort Wayne, Hamilton Southeastern, Moorseville Consolidated, Munster, Wawasee and Noblesville in reading.
Meanwhile, districts like Hammond and the Warren Township, Wayne Township and Perry Township districts in Marion County continue to perform behind 2019 levels.
Indiana Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Indiana Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Niki Kelly for questions: info@indianacapitalchronicle.com.
