INDIANAPOLIS – An increasing number of Hoosier students in grades 3-8 are passing state standardized tests, signaling continued learning-loss recovery following the COVID-19 pandemic.
But ILEARN scores still trail behind 2019 results, and students who struggled before the pandemic are not making academic rebounds as fast as their peers.
Nearly 41% of Indiana students who were tested this spring were at or above proficiency standards in English and language arts, according to new data released Wednesday by the Indiana Department of Education. Roughly the same percentage of students were at or above proficiency standards in math.
Even so, only 30.6% of Hoosier students passed both the math and English sections of ILEARN. That is slightly up from last year’s spring test results, which showed that only 30.2% earned passing scores.
In 2019, however, pre-pandemic pass rates indicated that 37.1% of Hoosier kids in grades 3-8 were proficient in both the English and math portions of the exam.
The statewide ILEARN results reflect a slight increase in math across all grade levels.
The highest increases were in grade four, which improved by 1.3 percentage points, as well as grade six, which went up 2.8 percentage points, and grade eight, which improved by 1.6 percentage points.
Most grade levels scored about half a percentage point lower on the English portion of ILEARN despite ongoing, statewide efforts to improve literacy. Seventh-grade English scores saw the most significant drop — nearly 3 percentage points down from 2022.
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