Pass or fail? That’s the question when ILEARN results drop each summer, typically applied to students, schools, and districts. Today, I’m going to look at how local education outlets covered ILEARN. I’m not going to apply a binary pass/fail, but I do think it’s important to analyze who offered what detail and to look at what gaps might remain since local news coverage, especially from outlets without a paywall, is how many people in our community find out about this data.

What is ILEARN?

The ILEARN assessment is Indiana’s annual spring test for students in grades 3-8. It measures whether or not they have mastered the math and reading concepts appropriate for their grade level.

For a deep dive into how the test is delivered, what is on the test, and what materials schools and families can use to prepare, visit these pages from IDOE:

• IDOE’s ILEARN page: high level FAQs and information about the test
• IDOE’s assessment portal: resources for ILEARN and IREAD published by the state for educators and families

My framework for analyzing local coverage

The three outlets I’m looking at for this comparison are Chalkbeat Indiana, Mirror Indy/WFYI (they offered joint coverage), and IndyStar. Each outlet did the rudimentary “ILEARN results are here, use this tool to look up your school’s results.” And each outlet did at least one story beyond that. I include titles and links to the more substantial pieces below so you can see the broad strokes.

• Chalkbeat Indiana: “2024 ILEARN scores: Indiana students show slight improvement in reading, slight drop in math”
• Mirror Indy/WFYI: “Nearly 70% of Indiana students fall short in both math, English standards post-pandemic”
• IndyStar: “2024 ILEARN statewide results show slight ELA growth but math scores unchanged” and “Marion County districts see very little year over year change in ILEARN scores” and “Indy suburbs again top state ILEARN tests; Brownsburg tops charts for English and math”

In the chart in the next section, I analyze each outlet’s coverage for the inclusion of four different factors: framing, disaggregated data, comparison between Marion County districts (including the local charter school sector), and comparison from 2021 data onwards. Here’s why I’m looking at those four areas.

Framing: Everyone included top-line data points in their stories so that’s not of concern. But how each outlet framed the overall message is worth looking at for what it signals to the reader.

Disaggregated date: Top-line data only communicates so much. A lot can be concealed with averages or overall pass rates. In education data sets, it’s common practice to disaggregate data by things like race, socioeconomic status, and gender in order to see what, if any, inequities exist and/or which schools excel at serving marginalized student groups.

Comparison between Marion County districts: Statewide passing rates are certainly of interest. But with all of these outlets primarily focused on Indianapolis coverage, I’m looking to see if they made comparisons between the 11 Marion County districts and the charter school sector since it has grown to the point where it serves more students than multiple other districts in Marion County.

Comparison from 2021 data onwards: The IDOE tends to use 2021 ILEARN data as a baseline for comparison and to see emerging trends in the data over time, so I’m looking for that as well.

Local coverage analysis

The following chart offers grades for each element and an overall grade. Afterward, I share a few thoughts on the strengths and gaps presented by each outlet.

	Framing	Disaggregated Data	Comparison Between Marion County Districts	Comparison from 2021 Data Onwards	Final Grade
Chalkbeat Indiana	B	A (F)	F	A (C)	B (C-)
Mirror Indy/WFYI	B-	A (C)	F	A (C)	B (C)
IndyStar	B	C+	A	A	B+

Chalkbeat Indiana

Update from 7/25: This outlet updated their story to include a very strong chart showing statewide disaggregated data for 2021 onwards. New grades have been added to the table above with the old in parentheses. My original assessment of their coverage appears below.

Chalkbeat Indiana framed its coverage in terms of gains and losses, which is a perfectly legitimate thing to do. They focused primarily on statewide results and did compare to both 2021 and pre-pandemic ILEARN scores. However, the data could have been presented year-over-year more coherently. They also did not disaggregate data nor did they make Marion County district comparisons. Charter schools got no mention.

Mirror Indy/WFYI

Update from 7/25: This outlet updated their story to include two brilliant charts, one that shows statewide ILEARN performance over the years and another showing disaggregated data comparing 2021 to 2024. New grades have been added to the table above with the old in parentheses. My original assessment of their coverage appears below.

They chose to frame their story in terms of how many students didn’t pass. This emphasized the fact that the vast majority of students do not pass the test statewide. It’s certainly more eye-catching than Chalkbeat’s marginal gains/losses framing, but I’d prefer that they framed their story in terms of what schools did or did not achieve rather than students.

They also stuck with statewide data, but did a solid job looking at different subgroup performance, including Black students and English Language Learners. However, they left out Latino students and low-income students. They also did not make Marion County comparisons and could have been clearer about the trajectory of results over time. No charter school coverage appeared from this outlet.

IndyStar

To this point, IndyStar has by far provided the most robust coverage with three different stories. They used a nearly identical initial framing as Chalkbeat Indiana, but went more in-depth on student subgroups, particularly Black students and low-income students.

They offered a great chart to show ILEARN performance over time since 2021 and did a follow-up piece exclusively looking at comparisons between Marion County districts (also with charts to look at each district’s performance over time). Their third piece focused on suburban district performance. None of their coverage mentioned the charter school sector.

Filling the gaps

The first thing to know is that none of what’s above is set in stone. More coverage may be incoming or it may not. The more in-depth data analysis I’d like to see does take time. But for now, there are notable gaps. I want to put a finer point on a few of them.

First, no outlet included analysis of the Indianapolis charter school sector. Like charters or not, it’s important to know how they’re performing, particularly in light of their stronger results for Black, Latino, and low-income students compared to other local districts in past years. Additionally, charter schools today enroll the majority of public school students within IPS boundaries, so I don’t think it’s beyond the pale to expect to see something about their performance.

Second, most of the coverage reported pass rates for just top-line data. For more particular points, the coverage trended toward just mentioning the gains or losses. Those are important, but it’s equally important to know the overall proficiency for, say, Black students, and not just if they gained percentage points in their passing rate compared to last year.

Third, even in cases where an outlet looked at a district’s performance over time since 2021, they did not look at that district’s subgroup performance over time. For example, how are Black students doing in IPS? You won’t find the answer in any of the coverage linked above. Not knowing if local news sources have subsequent stories planned, I aim to fill the gaps I called out with a future piece. In particular, I’ll be analyzing disaggregated data for different student subgroups across Marion County districts and charter schools. Look for that soon.