LOGANSPORT — Indiana last week received a waiver from the federal No Child Left Behind act, but local superintendents say the move may just swap one rigid set of guidelines for another without addressing educators’ frustrations.

It’s too early to say what that may mean for local schools, they said.

On Thursday, Indiana was one of 10 states to get a waiver from provisions of the federal act. No Child Left Behind used standardized testing to evaluate whether schools and districts made Adequate Yearly Progress.

State officials received approval from President Barack Obama’s administration to implement its own accountability plan. Indiana’s proposal will feature a version of the A to F grading system unveiled last year, with an added emphasis on tracking the progress of the lowest-performing students.

The Indiana State Teachers Association said last week that it “cautiously supports” the state’s new plan.

Locally, educators aren’t so sure.

“The jury will be out for a while on this one,” said Michele Starkey, superintendent for Logansport Community School Corporation. “The implications of it are still unknown.”

Indiana’s plan includes a new version of the A to F grading system.

According to the Associated Press, that system will include yearly report cards for schools analyzing their students’ progress on key testing areas, such as math and reading. It will state how many children passed each test and provide a letter grade for each subject, which will be averaged into an overall letter grade for the school.

The first round of those grades will come out at the end of this school year, but local officials say they never really had a handle on the grades given out last year.

Caston School Corporation Superintendent Dan Foster said that grading system was supposed to be easier for parents to understand, but even educators had a tough time figuring out how the grades were compiled.

He said Caston received a C last year. It was hard for him to explain to parents why the corporation received that mark even though test scores had improved.

“We did see score increases, but it wasn’t enough to bump us up a letter grade,” he said.

Pioneer Regional School Corporation received an A last year, while Southeastern School Corporation got a D. Superintendents of both districts could not be reached Friday for comment on this story.

Starkey said she’s just now getting a grip on the grading system used last year. LCSC got a C last year.

She has no idea how the new one will work yet.

The bottom 25 percent

Starkey was happy to see the state ditch the subgroup distinction, she said.

AYP broke test scores into subgroups of students based on ethnicity, language ability and economic status. If one subgroup of students failed to make AYP, then the whole school received failing marks.

Foster said that’s like missing one of 15 questions on a test and failing.

“That’s frustrating,” he said.

Foster isn’t sure the new system is any better.

Under Indiana’s plan, there will be one “super subgroup” made up of a school’s bottom 25 percent of students, as figured by their standardized test scores.

“It’s almost like you trade one stringent set of rules for another,” Foster said. “You’re still looking at the same group of students again.”

Starkey said the students who struggle will be the same whether they’re broken into 25 different groups or one.

She said the problem is those students are treated in the same manner as everyone else.

“Our non-English speakers, even though they’ve only been here a year, have to take the same test as everyone else,” she said.

That won’t change with Indiana’s plan.

“Once again, it’s based on test scores,” Starkey said.

New plan, same tests

The tests used to assess students remain the same in Indiana’s plan. For third- to eighth-graders, ISTEP is the measure used.

High school students are measured using English and algebra end-of-course assessments. Graduation rates are also factored in.

That could be a benefit to Logansport High School. The school saw its graduation rate jump by four percentage points last year.

“That was good news,” Starkey said. “It shows we’re focused.”

The state’s plan may actually help those numbers, the superintendent said.

In a couple of years, the high school will get some credit for students who graduate in five years instead of four. Right now, those students count against the school in assessments, Starkey said.

She said it’s especially hard for students whose first language isn’t English to graduate in four years.

“They graduate, but for some of the kids, it takes them a little longer,” Starkey said.

Indiana will also start grading high schools on the number of dual-credit courses they offer. It’s part of an initiative to make kids college and career ready.

This is another area where Logansport excels, Starkey said.

“We always get high marks there,” she said. “We offer a lot of college credit courses.”

But it may be something that hurts smaller schools that can’t afford to offer many of those courses, Starkey said.

Impacts unknown

Foster said he’d like to think that this new plan won’t affect Caston much, but he can’t be sure right now.

“I haven’t had a chance to play it out in my head,” he said.

Starkey said she thinks the plan mirrors Indiana’s efforts to overhaul education.

She had been hoping it would give some control back to local educators.

But control just shifted from the federal government to state government and without any real input from Indiana educators, Starkey said.

“When do you get to decide what’s best for the kids in your community?” she asked.

• Lindsey Ziliak is a staff writer at the Pharos-Tribune. She can be reached at 574-732-5148 or lindsey.ziliak@pharostribune.com.