Indiana’s Innovation Grant does not appear to have increased testing performance for charter schools through 2018

 

During my junior year of high school, my AP English teacher designed a project that would allow us to develop research skills and learn more about human rights issues (continuing the theme of our semester’s readings)—as a meaningful conclusion to fill the month of school that remained following AP testing. However, the few Chromebooks our charter school possessed were reserved for yearly testing at that time. Not willing to set aside a valuable opportunity, she used her resources and found a way to get things done—taking advantage of a lengthy two hour class period that allowed for walks to the nearest public library while still leaving room for quality research time. A determined teacher and the luck of having a library nearby made this possible for my cohort; however, not every class at every school may have those factors align.

Charter schools in Indiana receive less funding per-pupil than their traditional public school counterparts. Many advocates suggest this gap means charter students receive inequitable access to resources (e.g. computers). The Charter and Innovation Network School Grant Program (often shortened to Innovation Grant) was implemented in 2015 by the Indiana General Assembly as an attempt to address the funding disparity between Indiana’s charter schools and their traditional public school counterparts, though it does not eliminate the gap. As of December 2020, qualifying schools can receive up to $750 per-pupil.

As with most any investment, I hypothesized that the goal in allocating additional resources is to see increased performance as a result. However, the Charter and Innovation Network School Grant Program does not appear to have increased standardized testing performance for Indiana charter schools per data from 2014 to 2018 for grades 3–8. Results for the change attributable to the grant program in the percentage of students per school who passed the English portion of the exam and for individual students who passed both English and math in a given year were not significant based on the results from my research.

However, there appears to be a statistically significant decrease in the percentage of students passing the mathematics ISTEP+ exam in grades 3–8 over the time period that is connected a school’s receipt of the grant—reflected in the steeper decline (or widening gap between recipients and all other schools) in pass rates represented by the red line in the graph below. It is important to recognize that this result does not establish causation; there is simply a negative relationship observed based on the data available.

 

Testing data is important as it can reflect students’ knowledge of standards at a given point in time. However, many argue that standardized testing is not a true reflection of educational quality; testing data should not be the sole factor when making important decisions around programs such as the grant. My study concluded that the data does not indicate improved test performance, but I would be interested in further research that considers more holistic measures of performance than simple testing data.

In Indiana, charter schools are tuition-free public schools, and their students deserve equitable funding—though that conversation may be more nuanced than a simple dollars-per-pupil figure. Walking to the library in the opening anecdote is a fond memory—full of sunshine in the warming weather of May and a feeling of adventure shared amongst a tight-knit class with a teacher who cared. However, this anecdote also reflects some of the struggles underfunded schools face. Of note, my school achieved 1:1 computing (a resource which has been invaluable with this year’s shift to online instruction) in the following year—after Innovation Grant funds had been allocated and received.

Samantha Bailey is preparing to graduate in May 2021 with a Bachelor of Science in Public Affairs majoring in Law and Public Policy along with a minor in educational studies. She is pursuing a concurrent Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics from the College of Arts and Sciences.  For the majority of her K12 experience, she attended (and maintains a strong love for) a small urban charter in Indianapolis. Her LinkedIn can be found here.