Southern Indiana school leaders assess ILEARN results

Brooke McAfee, The Evening News and the Tribune, Jeffersonville, Ind.
·5 min read

Jul. 18—SOUTHERN INDIANA — The ILEARN results were mixed for Southern Indiana schools in 2023.

Last week, the Indiana Department of Education released the statewide proficiency rates from this year's standardized assessment, which was administered in the spring to third through eighth grades.

The statewide results show that 40.7% of students met proficiency standards in English and language arts (ELA), a slight decrease from 41.2% last year.

The statewide math results improved slightly compared to last year. The rates went from 39.4% to 40.9%. The combined results for ELA and math remained similar, going from 30.2% in 2022 to 30.6% in 2023.

Compared to other districts in Clark and Floyd counties, Clarksville Community Schools had the lowest district-wide scores. In 2023, the district's ELA proficiency decreased from 25% in 2022 to 20.1% in 2023.

Clarksville's math proficiency went from 16.2% to 14.3%, and proficiency in both math and ELA went from 11.4% to 9.9%.

Clarksville Comm-unity Schools Superintendent Tina Bennett said the district is "absolutely still seeing and feeling the effects" of learning loss caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We are working diligently and will continue to work to bridge some of those learning gaps that we know are there," she said. "We see them every single day."

The district uses ILEARN data by breaking it down by individual schools and grade levels.

"There are grade levels where we may be at state average, there are other grade levels where we're well below state average," Bennett said. "What we're looking for — what we always look for — is growth and proficiency."

In Borden-Henryville School Corp., ELA proficiency went from 42.3% last year to 41.6% this year. Math proficiency went from 36.7% to 38%, and proficiency in both subjects went from 27.3% to 26.4%.

Borden-Henryville Superintendent Johnny Budd said in the past few years, the district has focused on professional development for math education and "science of reading" education. He feels the district is "competitive with our neighboring districts."

"We are pretty comparable with districts around us, if not better among those districts, and overall, we've got things heading in the right direction," Budd said.

He said there is still "a lot of work to be done" and "a lot of room for improvement."

"I do feel like our staff is working hard to do that," he said.

ELA proficiency in Silver Creek School Corp. went from 46.65% to 43.2%. Math proficiency went from 43.7% to 41.5%, and proficiency in both subjects went from 33.3% to 31.3%.

Greater Clark saw increases in proficiency rates compared to last year. In 2023, ELA proficiency went from 37.8% to 39%.

Greater Clark's math proficiency went from 29.6% to 33%. Proficiency in both subjects went from 22.8% to 25.8%.

New Albany-Floyd County Consolidated School Corp. saw a decrease in ELA scores this year compared to last year. NAFCS went from 48.4% to 45.6% ELA proficiency.

The math results were similar to last year's. Math proficiency went from 50.2% to 50.4%. ELA and math scores went from 38.9% to 37.2%.

Sally Jensen, director of assessment and student information at NAFCS, said the district first looks broadly at the ILEARN results before digging deep into the data.

"We're making progress," she said. "We're trying to watch that recovery period. We had [COVID], we have hybrid education and we had all of those things. Honestly, the 2022-23 school year is our first mostly normal school year in three years, so we got to give a little bit of recovery time to get to that point where we can have full-blown normal instruction, and that's pretty much what we had in [2022-23]."

Jensen notes that NAFCS historically performs well above state averages, and the district continues to have higher-than-average ILEARN results. NAFCS is also performing "very well" compared to neighboring public school systems and comparable Indiana schools.

"So we're still performing very well against our local peers and our state peers, that helps us, but yet...we don't want any child to not be proficient on this assessment," she said. "So I can spout all those statistics, but that's the bottom line."

ILEARN is "just one more data point" to help NAFCS address student needs, Jensen said.

"We track student progress on our own assessments all year long, and we don't wait for ILEARN to tell us," she said.

Jensen said in the past few years, the district has provided extra support to students with the help of federal COVID-19 relief funds. This includes programming during fall and spring breaks, additional summer school opportunities, expanded after-school tutoring and extra staffing.

"We've put everything we can at that to offer additional time and support for all the students, and we will be able to continue that through this school year," she said.

In addition to the brick-and-mortar schools, Clarksville Community Schools' average proficiency rates also include the Indiana Gateway Digital Academy, an online program offered by the Clarksville Community Schools. The virtual academy had about 3,200 students enrolled at the end of the 2022-23 school year, and it is open to students across Indiana.

"When we look at averages, we look at Clarksville Elementary to state average, Clarksville Middle School to the state average and Clarksville High School to the state average, because if you take our corporation and compare it to other corporations throughout the state, we're very unique," Bennett said. "There are only a handful of corporations in the school that have a virtual school."

Bennett also notes specific factors affecting Clarksville students, including an increased number of multilingual learners in the past year.

"So that's definitely an opportunity for us to help those students and work directly with those families, and we have several initiatives in place for that, but realistically, it's also very challenging when you look at a single point in time like a test score," she said.

Clarksville Community Schools plans to offer an extended learning day program for students this year, which will provide extra tutoring and remediation after school throughout the year.