By KELLIE KELLY
Guest Columnist
The other day I was chatting with a friend of mine, and we were discussing the recent ILEARN scores. My friend has a daughter who graduated two years ago from Fishers High School and two younger children in elementary and middle school.
She made the comment that she can tell based on her children’s homework assignments, textbooks, and class projects that HSE Schools are not as academically rigorous as when her older daughter attended. She believes a decrease in academic focus is responsible for HSE’s lower standardized test scores. She is concerned that her younger children will not have the same level of college preparedness when they graduate. She wants to see HSE Schools return to a focus on academics rather than social issues.
In order to answer the question, “Are HSE Schools in a period of academic decline?” we can look at the data. The Indiana Department of Education has an excellent data center on its website with spreadsheets going back to the Spring of 2009 for ISTEP scores. We can look at that data from 2009 to 2022, and by using Group Cohort Analysis, we can see how HSE Schools performed in rankings relative to the top performing school districts in the State of Indiana.
HSE currently uses Group Cohort Analysis as a tool to determine benchmarks for metrics and objectives. The group cohort they have chosen is based on enrollment. Since, for this purpose, we are determining whether HSE is in a period of academic decline, choice of cohort group was based on whether a school district historically scores among the highest on standardized testing assessments. The cohort group includes 23 of the top performing school districts: Carmel Clay, Zionsville, Brownsburg, West Lafayette, Barr-Reeve, SE Dubois, North Spencer, Hamilton Southeastern, Plainfield, Penn-Harris-Madison, Crown Point, NW Hendricks, Munster, Center Grove, East Porter, Noblesville, Westfield, Warrick, Union, Valparaiso, North Posey, Southern Hancock, and Wa-Nee.
Looking at school corporation data from the IDOE website, rankings can be made within this Cohort Group. A score of 1 to 23 was assigned to each school district based on its performance each year as defined by the combined Math/ELA proficiency percentages on the standardized test given in grades three to eight.
Following are charts for four of the 23 schools in the group cohort: Carmel Clay Schools, Brownsburg Community Schools, Westfield-Washington Schools, and Hamilton Southeastern Schools. Keep in mind the charts show the ranking number, so it’s like golf … lower is better! We want to see short bar graphs, and we want to look for patterns of increase/decrease.
Starting with Carmel Clay Schools, we see a whole row of short little bars. This means Carmel Clay Schools has consistently ranked in the top five school districts from 2009 to 2022. This is indeed an impressive academic accomplishment.
Next, let’s look at Brownsburg Community Schools. You can see from the chart that Brownsburg’s rankings from 2009 to 2011 placed Brownsburg in the middle of our Cohort Group. But, Brownsburg’s bars get shorter. And for the last six years they have been the leader. They are currently the best performing public school district in Indiana on the ILEARN assessment.
This chart shows us patterns of both academic incline and decline. Westfield Washington starts out strong in 2009. Then gradually, academic performance starts to decrease as shown by the bars in the chart getting taller. But the good news for Westfield is that the rankings for 2019 to 2022 show much improvement.
Hamilton Southeastern’s chart is concerning. We start out so strong in 2009 and 2010, ranking number four! Then begins a period of academic decline from 2011 to 2014. Our rankings improve from 2015 to 2018. But there is a huge decline in ranking in 2019, followed by another decline in 2021. We once ranked number four; now we rank 16.
In summary, using Group Cohort Analysis for the top 23 performing school districts in Indiana shows that Hamilton Southeastern Schools is in a period of academic decline. Even though our 2022 ranking did improve, we still have a long way to go to return to the levels of academic success our students once achieved.
It’s up to the stakeholders in our community to decide who to elect for the school board in November. If you are also concerned about HSE’s academic decline, then please vote for school board members who want to make student learning and student outcomes priority number one for HSE Schools.
If you wish to learn more and to meet the candidates for school board who want to focus HSE Schools on academic excellence, please attend the Town Hall Meeting on Monday, Sept. 12 at the Fall Creek Township building from 7 to 9 p.m. You can register for this event at fishersone.org.
Graphics provided by Kellie Kelly