Education At The Statehouse: Ditching The ISTEP

Gov. Mike Pence has called on the Indiana General Assembly to make education a major focus of this year’s current session. To help explain the legislative issues, 90.1 WFYI’s Eric Weddle and Christopher Ayers will discuss a related topic Fridays during "Morning Edition" the next several weeks.

This week Eric and Chris discuss a proposal that would end the ISTEP and other standardized tests and replace them with an "off-the-shelf" national test. Senate Bill 566 would end the tradition of Indiana hiring an outside company to design the ISTEP. Instead, the State Board of Education would be tasked with choosing an already available exam that could also replace high school end-of-course exams and the state’s third-grade reading test, IREAD.

For more information:

• SB566: Replaces ISTEP program testing with another testing program for school years beginning after June 30, 2016.
• SB527: Allows nonpublic schools that accept vouchers to administer, instead of the ISTEP program, another nationally recognized assessment.

Listen to last week's discussion about proposed legislation to change school intervention here.

Contact WFYI reporter Eric Weddle at eweddle@wfyi.org or call (317) 614-0470. Follow on Twitter: @ericweddle.