Tuesday marked Organization Day, the official kickoff to the 2016 legislative session and the day lawmakers reveal more details about their ideas for upcoming legislation.

Sen. Mark Stoops, D-Bloomington, today called for the Indiana legislature to take the dramatic step of passing a bill next week during what is normally a mostly ceremonial session to protect schools and teachers from consequences of an expected steep drop in ISTEP scores.

With only two months left in the calendar year, Indiana schools are now one step closer to finally seeing their standardized test results from last spring.

New high school diploma requirements that drew criticism for a variety of reasons will head back to the drawing board after the State Board of Education voted to postpone any action that would put the diplomas into effect.

The late-start time proposal calling for more than an hour delay was rejected this summer. But superintendent Carole Schmidt told the school board this week that University of Notre Dame fellows are reworking the proposal to address concerns.

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence is siding with Democratic state schools Superintendent Glenda Ritz in calling for student scores on the ISTEP standardized test to not impact teacher pay this school year.

Ball State economist Michael Hicks says confirming a teacher shortage in any state depends on what numbers you use.

It's been two weeks since the Indiana State Board of Education put off a vote because of questions over potential differences in difficulty between the test's online and paper versions.

President Obama announced his administration will work with states to reduce the amount of time students spend taking standardized tests.

Legislators will gather at the Statehouse for Monday's meeting of an education panel that's been gathering input on potential solutions to the state's drop in the number of teaching licenses issued.