January 23, 2009

Catholic Schools Week Supplement

Students maintain improvement on ISTEP scores

Nationally known chastity speaker Jason Everett promotes the A Promise to Keep program to archdiocesan students. (File photo by Mary Ann Wyand)

Click the above graphic for a larger version.

Special to The Criterion

In September 2008, 11,500 third- through 10th-grade students from 71 Catholic schools within the boundaries of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis took the Indiana Statewide Test of Educational Progress (ISTEP+).

For the last eight years, students have shown and been able to maintain growth in their language arts/English and mathematics proficiency on the Indiana academic standards compared to the state of Indiana. The slight decline is due to no longer testing of the ninth-grade students, and phasing out of ISTEP at the 10th-grade level in favor of the end-of-course assessments.

The average of archdiocesan students at each grade level passing both the language arts/English and mathematics is above both the non-public and Indiana state averages. The archdiocesan percentages range from 86 percent at third grade to 92 percent at eighth grade. The trend this year continues past student performance. Simply stated, the longer a student remains in archdiocesan schools the greater the growth in student proficiency.†

Local site Links: