Indiana brings back A-F grades, but exactly how schools will be measured undecided
Schools across Indiana will start seeing A-F letter grades again in 2026, thanks to a law signed by Gov. Mike Braun after the practice was suspended for seven years.
House Bill 1498 requires the state board of education to approve a new methodology for school performance by the end of this year and then assign schools A-F grades based on that new methodology.
The final vote on the bill in the House fell mostly along party lines with a 65-25 vote.
The bill also includes some specifics that the methodology must be based upon metrics listed in the Indiana Department of Education's Graduates Prepared to Succeed (GPS) dashboard, including proficiency rates for IREAD and ILEARN and the attainment of diploma seals.
However, the bill also allows the state board of education to include whatever other factors they deem necessary in the methodology.
The state must hand out letter grades for all schools across the state, including private schools, no later than Dec. 31, 2026. Schools would not get a letter grade for the 2024-25 year.
Indiana stopped handing out letter grades in 2018 as the state was attempting to revamp the grading methodology to accommodate the new ILEARN test. Then, grades were delayed even further due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Indiana Secretary of Education Katie Jenner said during the House Education committee hearing on HB 1498 that previously she had advocated moving away from a single letter grade for schools, but admitted parents had come to her asking for an easier way to understand how schools are doing.
More School news: ACLU sues Gov. Mike Braun after law eliminates Indiana University trustee elections
She said parents found the many metrics listed on the Indiana GPS dashboard to be confusing and wanted an easier way to gauge a school's success.
The bill also allows the IDOE to consider eliminating high school diploma waivers altogether, which allow qualifying students to be exempt from certain graduation requirements under the state's 'graduation pathways.'
Jenner said that since the state's overall waiver usage has been going down steadily in recent years, she doesn't see the need to make drastic changes to that right now.
'Our data is going in the right direction there, and I think we have to ensure we're working with schools, parents and families so we're never pulling the rug out too early,' Jenner said during the House Education Committee meeting in January.
Some Democratic lawmakers said during committee hearings on the bill that they think using a single letter grade is too simplistic for something as complex as how a school is working for its students.
Rep. Ed Delaney, D-Indianapolis, suggested that rather than a letter grade, schools instead be shown as either needing state intervention or not. His amendment to include that failed to pass.
Sen. Fady Qaddoura, D-Indianapolis, said during the Senate committee hearing on the bill that he hopes the metrics for grading include more than just testing scores, which could unfairly punish predominantly low-income schools compared to wealthier schools.
Erin Geddes, who sends her three kids to Warren Township schools, told IndyStar she's worried the letter grades will just further divide wealthy districts from the lower-income ones.
More changes coming: Once a school board member, Gov. Braun signs law making school board elections partisan
'These grades do nothing to highlight excellent teachers and administrative staff who are doing everything they can with what resources, support, or home life their students come from,' Geddes said.
Instead, Geddes thinks the state should be asking families how they would grade their schools.
'Ask us parents because we're the experts on our own kids, and that way it isn't a collective punishment on our own schools, which we chose for our kids,' Geddes said.
Other parents like Jennifer Goetz, who has three children at Avon Community schools and was a former teacher at a Chicago public school, believe the letter grades will reinforce the wrong things.
She's worried the grades will further pressure schools to only teach students how to pass tests, instead of making sure they learn the skills they need to be strong in reading and math in the future.
'That's what I saw when I was teaching in Chicago, just the pressure to meet the grades and not necessarily ensure authentic learning was happening,' Goetz told IndyStar.
However, getting back to delivering a letter grade for every public and private school in Indiana is something that lawmakers and the state department have been wanting since the state's newest standardized test, ILEARN, was implemented.
Republican lawmakers supporting the bill said letter grades are an important aspect of holding schools responsible for student success.
"School accountability is really important and this is a giant step in that direction," said Sen. Spencer Deery, R-West Lafayette, during floor discussion on the bill.
During the January state board of education meeting, Jenner gave a presentation on a tentative framework of what the state's accountability model for grade schools could be based on.
During that meeting, she explained that the current grading model for grades 3-8 is primarily focused on state assessments and academic growth. For high school grades, it was based on state assessments and other indicators like college and career readiness and graduation rates.
Keep up with school news: Sign up for Study Hall, IndyStar's free weekly education newsletter.
Some of the changes Jenner then proposed for grading third grade included literacy rates, something already required under HB 1498, but also student attendance improvements.
For grades 4-8, Jenner proposed attendance metrics as well as growth in ILEARN math and ELA, as well as advanced coursework.
For the high school grades, Jenner suggested that attendance metrics, advanced coursework, attainment of diploma seals, work-based learning and earning credentials of value be included in the grading metrics.
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an hour ago
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Republicans who have long supported the changes, along with the gun industry, say the tax infringes on Second Amendment rights. They say silencers are mostly used by hunters and target shooters for sport. 'Burdensome regulations and unconstitutional taxes shouldn't stand in the way of protecting American gun owners' hearing,' said Clyde, who owns two gun stores in Georgia and often wears a pin shaped like an assault rifle on his suit lapel. Democrats are fighting to stop the provision, which was unveiled days after two Minnesota state legislators were shot in their homes, as the bill speeds through the Senate. They argue that loosening regulations on silencers could make it easier for criminals and active shooters to conceal their weapons. 'Parents don't want silencers on their streets, police don't want silencers on their streets,' said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. The gun language has broad support among Republicans and has received little attention as House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., work to settle differences within the party on cuts to Medicaid and energy tax credits, among other issues. But it is just one of hundreds of policy and spending items included to entice members to vote for the legislation that could have broad implications if the bill is enacted within weeks, as Trump wants. Inclusion of the provision is also a sharp turn from the climate in Washington just three years ago when Democrats, like Republicans now, controlled Congress and the White House and pushed through bipartisan gun legislation. The bill increased background checks for some buyers under the age of 21, made it easier to take firearms from potentially dangerous people and sent millions of dollars to mental health services in schools. 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If the gun provisions remain in the larger legislation and it is passed, silencers and the short-barrel rifles and shotguns would lose an extra layer of regulation that they are subject to under the National Firearms Act, passed in the 1930s in response to concerns about mafia violence. They would still be subject to the same regulations that apply to most other guns — and that includes possible loopholes that allow some gun buyers to avoid background checks when guns are sold privately or online. Larry Keane of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, who supports the legislation, says changes are aimed at helping target shooters and hunters protect their hearing. He argues that the use of silencers in violent crimes is rare. 'All it's ever intended to do is to reduce the report of the firearm to hearing safe levels,' Keane says. Speaking on the floor before the bill passed the House, Rep. Clyde said the bill restores Second Amendment rights from 'over 90 years of draconian taxes.' Clyde said Johnson included his legislation in the larger bill 'with the purest of motive.' 'Who asked for it? I asked,' said Clyde, who ultimately voted for the bill after the gun silencer provision was added. Clyde was responding to Rep. Maxwell Frost, a 28-year-old Florida Democrat, who went to the floor and demanded to know who was responsible for the gun provision. Frost, who was a gun-control activist before being elected to Congress, called himself a member of the 'mass shooting generation' and said the bill would help 'gun manufacturers make more money off the death of children and our people.' 'There's a reason silencers have been regulated for nearly a century: They make it much harder for law enforcement and bystanders to react quickly to gunshots,' said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety. Schumer and other Democrats are trying to convince the Senate parliamentarian to drop the language as she reviews the bill for policy provisions that aren't budget-related. 'Senate Democrats will fight this provision at the parliamentary level and every other level with everything we've got,' Schumer said earlier this month.
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3 hours ago
GOP tax bill would ease regulations on gun silencers and some rifles and shotguns
WASHINGTON -- The massive tax and spending cuts package that President Donald Trump wants on his desk by July 4 would loosen regulations on gun silencers and certain types of rifles and shotguns, advancing a longtime priority of the gun industry as Republican leaders in the House and Senate try to win enough votes to pass the bill. The guns provision was first requested in the House by Georgia Rep. Andrew Clyde, a Republican gun store owner who had initially opposed the larger tax package. The House bill would remove silencers — called 'suppressors' by the gun industry — from a 1930s law that regulates firearms that are considered the most dangerous, eliminating a $200 tax while removing a layer of background checks. The Senate kept the provision on silencers in its version of the bill and expanded upon it, adding short-barreled, or sawed-off, rifles and shotguns. Republicans who have long supported the changes, along with the gun industry, say the tax infringes on Second Amendment rights. They say silencers are mostly used by hunters and target shooters for sport. 'Burdensome regulations and unconstitutional taxes shouldn't stand in the way of protecting American gun owners' hearing,' said Clyde, who owns two gun stores in Georgia and often wears a pin shaped like an assault rifle on his suit lapel. Democrats are fighting to stop the provision, which was unveiled days after two Minnesota state legislators were shot in their homes, as the bill speeds through the Senate. They argue that loosening regulations on silencers could make it easier for criminals and active shooters to conceal their weapons. 'Parents don't want silencers on their streets, police don't want silencers on their streets,' said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. The gun language has broad support among Republicans and has received little attention as House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., work to settle differences within the party on cuts to Medicaid and energy tax credits, among other issues. But it is just one of hundreds of policy and spending items included to entice members to vote for the legislation that could have broad implications if the bill is enacted within weeks, as Trump wants. Inclusion of the provision is also a sharp turn from the climate in Washington just three years ago when Democrats, like Republicans now, controlled Congress and the White House and pushed through bipartisan gun legislation. The bill increased background checks for some buyers under the age of 21, made it easier to take firearms from potentially dangerous people and sent millions of dollars to mental health services in schools. Passed in the summer of 2022, just weeks after the shooting of 19 children and two adults at a school in Uvalde, Texas, it was the most significant legislative response to gun violence in decades. Three years later, as they try to take advantage of their consolidated power in Washington, Republicans are packing as many of their longtime priorities as possible, including the gun legislation, into the massive, wide-ranging bill that Trump has called 'beautiful." 'I'm glad the Senate is joining the House to stand up for the Second Amendment and our Constitution, and I will continue to fight for these priorities as the Senate works to pass President Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill,' said Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who was one of the lead negotiators on the bipartisan gun bill in 2022 but is now facing a primary challenge from the right in his bid for reelection next year. If the gun provisions remain in the larger legislation and it is passed, silencers and the short-barrel rifles and shotguns would lose an extra layer of regulation that they are subject to under the National Firearms Act, passed in the 1930s in response to concerns about mafia violence. They would still be subject to the same regulations that apply to most other guns — and that includes possible loopholes that allow some gun buyers to avoid background checks when guns are sold privately or online. Larry Keane of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, who supports the legislation, says changes are aimed at helping target shooters and hunters protect their hearing. He argues that the use of silencers in violent crimes is rare. 'All it's ever intended to do is to reduce the report of the firearm to hearing safe levels,' Keane says. Speaking on the floor before the bill passed the House, Rep. Clyde said the bill restores Second Amendment rights from 'over 90 years of draconian taxes.' Clyde said Johnson included his legislation in the larger bill 'with the purest of motive.' 'Who asked for it? I asked,' said Clyde, who ultimately voted for the bill after the gun silencer provision was added. Clyde was responding to Rep. Maxwell Frost, a 28-year-old Florida Democrat, who went to the floor and demanded to know who was responsible for the gun provision. Frost, who was a gun-control activist before being elected to Congress, called himself a member of the 'mass shooting generation' and said the bill would help 'gun manufacturers make more money off the death of children and our people.' Among other concerns, control advocates say less regulation for silencers could make it harder for law enforcement to stop an active shooter. 'There's a reason silencers have been regulated for nearly a century: They make it much harder for law enforcement and bystanders to react quickly to gunshots,' said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety. Schumer and other Democrats are trying to convince the Senate parliamentarian to drop the language as she reviews the bill for policy provisions that aren't budget-related. 'Senate Democrats will fight this provision at the parliamentary level and every other level with everything we've got,' Schumer said earlier this month.
