The 2022 ILEARN test scores are in for Indiana. Here's how Evansville-area schools fared

EVANSVILLE, Ind. — New state data shows Evansville students are continuing to improve academically coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic but the school district still trails statewide percentages of students meeting standards in core subjects.

Students in the Evansville Vanderburgh School Corp. scored lower than statewide averages in areas such as English and math, while more students in Warrick and Posey county schools were at or above proficiency in those subjects than the state average.

The results of the 2022 ILEARN scores, released Wednesday, show that statewide, 41.2% of Indiana’s students are at or above proficiency standards in English/language arts, 39.4% of students are at or above proficiency standards in math and 30.2% of students are at proficiency or higher for both subjects.

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Most grade levels and student populations statewide increased their scores 1% to 4% in English and Math proficiency rates from last year’s exam.

By comparison, in the EVSC 39.9% of students tested were proficient in English/language arts, 37.5% in math and 29.4% for both.

In the Warrick County School Corp., 58.5% were proficient in English, 59.8% in math and 48.5% in both.

There was some decline in Posey County scores compared to 2021 but more students were still proficient in the subjects than statewide.

Of the Metropolitan School District of Mount Vernon students tested, 41.4% were proficient in English, 48.7% math and 34.9% combined. In the North Posey school district, 58.9% English, 58.5% math and 46.6% combined.

A study contracted by the Indiana Department of Education found the overall impact of the pandemic on student academic recovery went from large to moderate in 2021 to moderate to none or even in some cases, on its way to improvement in 2022.

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However, the state’s lowest-performing students are not showing improvement and English language learners have a low rate of recovering in English, especially in the middle grades.

Suburban schools still on top

There was a significance difference in student performance between students in Evansville's less affluent and more urban schools compared to those primarily serving students from suburban settings.

EVSC elementary schools with the highest percentage of students at or above state standards in English and math combined were McCuthanville, West Terrace, Scott, Oak Hill, Cynthia Heights and Highland.

Middle and junior high schools with the highest combined subject scores were Perry Heights, North Junior High, Thompkins, Helfrich STEM Academy and Plaza Park.

In a written statement to the Courier & Press, EVSC spokesman Jason Woebkenberg said the EVSC’s ILEARN results are consistent with outcomes in similar school districts across the state. He said EVSC remains committed to mitigating the impacts of the pandemic.

"The 2022 spring ILEARN results are a snapshot of student outcomes at one point in time," he said. " We are committed to using this data, along with multiple other assessment measures, to provide highly effective instruction for all students."

The schools and students that have traditionally performed best on statewide standardized tests continued to do so.

A regular criticism of standardized testing is that it is better at predicting the demographic makeup of a school than it is at measuring school performance or student achievement. Still, state officials said it is a data point they use to see where students on in their learning.

Many of the highest-performing public schools were located in suburban Indianapolis, where the student bodies are often whiter and wealthier than the state average. Those include Brownsburg Community, Carmel Clay and Zionsville Community school districts that all had proficiency rates for students passing both exams at over 55%. Brownsburg was the highest of public school districts at 64.3%.

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However, in Marion County, 14.1% of Indianapolis Public Schools students passed both portions of the exam, an increase from 10% in 2021. Speedway, Franklin Township and Perry Township did better than the state average.

Elsewhere in the state, some of the lowest percentages for public schools where students passed both exams were in the northwest part of the state with Gary schools at 2%, East Chicago at 3.8% and Hammond at 7.6%.

State looks to continue gains

While student learning has generally stabilized with normal rates of growth, the levels of acceleration needed to recover from the pandemic are not there, Charity Flores, IDOE chief academic officer for IDOE told the Indiana State Board of Education on Wednesday.

She said the pandemic had varying levels of impact on students, and this is year two of a recovery that could take three to five years.

“Based on their level of disruption, if you are trying to get to the same end point at the end of the day, you have to apply different strategies of support,” Flores said. “In order to really push recovery forward, we need unprecedented levels of support for students”

In 2021, state officials said it would take “unprecedented” rates of learning and possibly several years to get students back to where they would be if there was no pandemic.

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The 2021-2022 school year was expected to be a balancing act as educators taught grade-level material balanced with making sure students had the foundation they needed or got the remediation when they didn’t.

The study contract by the state shows that the balancing act moved students forward. And as students take small gains, the IDOE has rolled out multiple initiatives to support students, teachers and schools.

Those include more than $150 million for a grant program to support accelerated learning with summer and before/after school programming as well as initiatives for extra support to schools for literacy and STEM, or science, technology, engineering and math, and instruction with a focus on instructional coaching for educators, additional partnerships for student tutoring and teacher professional development and more.

Mark Wilson covers education and environment at the Courier & Press. Contact him at mark.wilson@courierpress.com.

This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Here's Evansville area schools results, scores from 2022 ILEARN tests