ILEARN season is upon us. But with school starting up again in central Indiana, it’s easy to gloss over this year’s results as another lackluster year for post-pandemic academic recovery. I get the sense many folks want to write off standardized testing results entirely as irrelevant to a meaningful discussion about education progress.

But there’s real substance when you dig into the numbers. They can tell us a lot about which schools/districts are best at equipping students with the math and reading skills they need to be successful. In a previous piece, I analyzed ILEARN coverage from three local outlets, looking for any gaps in what they provided.

Today, I aim to fill those gaps. In particular, I want to review ILEARN outcomes across Marion County’s 11 school districts, including the local charter school sector as its own district. In addition, I’m going to break out ILEARN outcomes for Black, Latino, and low-income students. And for all of it, I compare 2024 results to the 2021 baseline immediately following the no-test year of the pandemic.

Quick recap of statewide results

First, let’s put everything that follows in a statewide context. For the 2023-24 school year, 30.8% of students passed both the math and reading portions of ILEARN. This was an increase of just 0.2 percentage points compared to the 2022-23 school year and only 2.2 points above the 2021 post-pandemic baseline. Astonishing progress this is not.

Moreover, the 2.2 points gained across three years account for only about 25% of the academic losses stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, we have yet to hit the not-so-high heights of 2019 ILEARN results.

Before moving on to local data, Table 1 rolls up 2024 results for Black, Latino, and low-income students statewide (with 2021 passing rates in parentheses).

	Overall Pass Rate	Percentage Point Change Compared to 2021
Black Students	11.7% (8.1%)	+3.6
Latino Students	17.3% (15.6%)	+1.7
Low-Income Students	18.1% (15%)	+3.1

The results in that table are likely unsurprising to many. Old hat, if you will. But pause. Think about them. Our schools statewide equipped just 11.7% of Black Hoosier students with the reading and math skills necessary to pass ILEARN. It’s a massive indictment on our state. And it’s easy to skip past as we roll into another school year.

I know ILEARN is just one data point about the health of our education ecosystem. But it’s a valuable one. And we ignore what it indicates at the expense of a whole lot of students who deserve better than what they currently receive.

Comparing Marion County districts’ ILEARN performance

Let’s turn the camera more locally and look at Marion County districts next. For our purposes, I’m going to treat Indianapolis charter schools as a district unto themselves for comparison purposes with the other 11 districts across Marion County. In fact, the majority of students who attend public schools within Center Township (where Indianapolis Public Schools is located) attend public charter schools.

Table 2 compares ILEARN pass rates throughout Marion County for 2024 (2021 passing rates are in parentheses to show the starting point).

	Overall Students	Black Students	Latino Students	Low-Income Students
Independent Charter Schools	17.2% (12.3%)	14.6% (9.4%)	15.8% (10.7%)	16.1% (10.3%)
Indianapolis Public Schools	11.7% (8.6%)	5.3% (2.7%)	7% (5.7%)	7.9% (4.4%)
MSD Pike Township	12.9% (11.5%)	9.9% (8%)	9.7% (10.2%)	10.2% (8.5%)
MSD Washington Township	26% (21%)	12.7% (8.1%)	11.4% (8.9%)	13.6% (8.4%)
MSD Lawrence Township	17.1% (14.3%)	10.4% (7.5%)	11.7% (8.5%)	10.7% (7.2%)
MSD Wayne Township	12.6% (10.9%)	9.4% (8%)	10.6% (10.2%)	10.7% (9.9%)
School Town of Speedway	46.3% (41.7%)	31% (31.1%)	30.1% (29.6%)	35.3% (31.5%)
MSD Warren Township	9.9% (7.9%)	5.5% (4%)	10.5% (8.9%)	8.6% (6%)
MSD Decatur Township	14.9% (14%)	12.4% (8.3%)	7.9% (10.1%)	12.7% (11.5%)
Perry Township Schools	28.8% (29.3%)	10.1% (8.1%)	13.5% (14.5%)	25.2% (24.2%)
Beech Grove City Schools	16.2% (13.1%)	5.2% (2.4%)	10.4% (9%)	12.7% (9.3%)
Franklin Township School Corporation	34.4% (32.7%)	14.2% (10.9%)	24.3% (22.9%)	23.9% (20.8%)

I recognize that’s a doozy of a table. The first thing to point out is that in most cases, passing rates are up compared to 2021. (Though there are notable outliers where data is trending in the wrong direction.) But, just like statewide passing rates, these gains are rather small and in most cases have not erased the losses caused by the pandemic. So students remain essentially worse off compared to where they were in 2019 despite a full three years of ESSER-aided recovery efforts. That’s not very heartening.

What is heartening? My eyes go to where gains have been the biggest. And for that, independent charter schools largely carry the day. They match or exceed proficiency gains since 2021 across all student subgroups compared to IPS, other Marion County districts, and the state. Even more notably, they have done so while serving higher percentages of students of color and low-income students compared to every other district in Marion County, including IPS.

Comparing IPS and independent charter schools

If we narrow in on a comparison between IPS and independent charter schools, a couple more things stand out. Black students attending Indianapolis charter schools are three times more likely to be proficient compared to their peers in IPS and Latino students attending Indianapolis charter schools are two times more likely to be proficient compared to their peers in IPS.

Would I like passing rates to be higher across the board? Of course. If the arc of history bends toward justice, we have a lot of bending left to do. At the same time, charter schools are leading their students to better academic outcomes than they would otherwise achieve were they to attend an IPS school. And again, charter schools serve higher percentages of students of color and low-income students compared to IPS.

To put a finer point on things, I have one more tidbit from this year’s data. Three charter schools—Indiana Math and Science Academy West, Paramount Brookside, and Paramount Cottage Home—surpassed the proficiency rates at IPS’ gifted school, which requires students to take an entry test for admission. Only one of those is allowed to cherry-pick its students. I’ll give you a hint, it’s not the charters.

Zooming back out

What can we ultimately learn from this year’s data? For starters, we have a long way to go as a city and a state. Let me be clear though: I don’t think the response to these results is to denigrate schools or educators. Yet neither can I countenance the reaction I see from a lot of corners that says things are fine actually and that we just need to reaffirm our trust in the system as is.

So here’s the question on my mind as I process this year’s ILEARN results. Does the appetite exist for us as a state, as communities, and as individual districts to have a good faith conversation about what it’s actually going to take to create a public education system where every student can succeed?

I see a lot of charter school advocates welcoming that conversation. I see less traditional public school advocates welcoming it. But it’s going to take all of us in cooperation, not competition, to create the conditions where all students can thrive.