In January of 2018, Indiana’s State Board of Education approved a controversial revised A-F grading formula for Indiana’s K-12 schools. In the new formula, student test scores play a bigger role in determining what “grade” a school receives. Now that the rules have been approved, they will undergo public comment and then be voted on again by the Board before going into effect. This final vote will be this summer.

The controversy surrounding the revised formula centers on the fact that educators were not consulted prior to proposing the changes. Nor was there a prior public discussion of the draft before the initial vote.

The changes to the formula come as Indiana works to comply with the federal Every Student Succeeds Act. The new formula would put more weight on the number of students who pass Indiana’s standardized tests and would stop measuring and giving credit for improvement of students on these tests. Improvement on test scores would be completely removed from the formula by 2023.