To answer the title: no. At least not according to 2024 SAT results.

ILEARN results dropping each summer tend to be a bit of an occasion in the education world. I know I get excited like a grandma at bingo night whenever they come around. But SAT has yet to command the same attention, often relegated to a footnote in local coverage, if mentioned at all. And it only occupies the last 10 of 44 slides in the IDOE’s major data dump back in July.

Even more peculiar to me is the absence of SAT discussion given the raging attention around Indiana’s newly-proposed graduation pathways (I don’t entirely mind the raging attention and I even contributed to it; it’s just, you know, as they say, add a teaspoon of baking powder to that pound of flour or else the bread won’t rise).

Public comment on the pathways closed at the end of July. But the window went out like a lion instead of a lamb thanks to multiple university presidents putting the plan on blast. If SAT results are a predictor of potential college performance (and they are in the eyes of the IDOE, if not the layman), then the state needs to square the graduation pathways overhaul with the ways said overhaul will improve college-readiness measures for Hoosier high schoolers. But enough about that. I promised you an SAT discussion. Let’s crack on.

2024 SAT results

Here’s the reality. Only half of Indiana 11^th graders meet the college-ready benchmark for evidence-based reading and writing (EBRW). In math, it’s worse, with only 1 in 4 11^th graders meeting the college-ready benchmark. And while reading scores largely held steady since 2022, math scores are falling year over year. Check the table below for the percent of 11^th graders who meet the college-ready benchmark in each subject from 2022 to 2024 (data only goes back to 2022 because that’s the first year Indiana required all high school juniors to take the SAT).

	2022	2023	2024
EBRW	52.5%	50.5%	51.8%
Math	32.9%	30.7%	25.2%

In the state’s slideshow, they attribute declines to a change in the SAT. It became adaptive for the first time this year. Which essentially means the test is programmed to show students different questions based on their performance within the test.

I don’t buy this explanation. For starters, reading scores increased. Only math decreased. For continuers, the College Board conducted a couple of studies that indicate scores are comparable between the old design and the new one. Trust the college board 100% I do not. Trust them here? Yeah, I do.

Another explanation for lackluster results came from state board member B.J. Watts, who is quoted in local coverage saying, “There’s probably some students that are not college bound and may not take this test as seriously as others.” I don’t dispute that not all students are college bound. But if the excuse for low outcomes is that students may not care enough, we need to throw out IREAD and ILEARN too since those historically have no consequences for students who don’t pass (I say historically because the state legislature gave IREAD a new set of teeth this year).

Moreover, my experience in the classroom and from visiting dozens of Indianapolis schools over the years is that students at all ages have an intense respect for standardized testing drilled into them. Rare are the students who blow off a state test because they don’t care about it or think it matters.

Maybe there’s a bubbling question you want to ask. Go ahead. Fire away. Like, why do SAT results even matter? Let’s start with the IDOE’s incredibly wonky answer: “Students who score at or above the benchmark have a 75% chance of earning at least a C in first-semester, credit-bearing college courses in that subject area.” From which I deduce, and buy into, the following translation: meeting the college-ready benchmark means students are much less likely to need remedial courses in college and much more likely to be able to finish in four years.

According to IDOE’s slideshow, these underwhelming results “[underscore] the urgency behind the state’s ongoing work to rethink the high school experience and, ultimately, ensure more parents and students see the value in education.” Except, see above where Indiana universities called out the new graduation pathways for essentially not requiring students to complete the necessary basics to get into college.

Bottom line 1: the numbers don’t reflect well on where we are statewide. Bottom line 2: I’m not convinced the IDOE is thinking deeply enough about better preparing students for the SAT and, by extension, college. To back up my second bottom line, here’s the three next steps IDOE committed to in their slideshow to address underwhelming SAT outcomes:

1. “Ensuring alignment between the exam and Indiana’s streamlined standards to maximize student success.”
2. “Support educators with PD and curriculum maps.”
3. “Pre and post workshops to support test design and data analysis.”

I just don’t see much substance there. Which could be fine. Except the state made a big deal out of requiring the SAT and using it as a clear marker of college-readiness back in 2022. A move that I think was correct at the time.

The local bright spots

Not all is doom. Let’s not lose sight of the local bright spots that might otherwise slip back into the dark vortex of an IDOE data dump. Dig into those spreadsheets that seem to scroll endlessly and a few nuggets emerge.

First, students at innovation network schools are leading the way in college-readiness rates. These schools combine the autonomy of a charter school with the support and services of a traditional district as they operate formally within the Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) district.

It’s a longstanding charter/district partnership in Indianapolis that continues bearing fruit at the high school level. Students at innovation schools surpass statewide college-readiness rates overall and for Black, Latino, and low-income students. Most people don’t expect a set of urban public schools to outperform statewide averages. But it’s happening.

It’s even starker when you compare innovation school outcomes to traditional IPS schools (remember, both operate under the district’s umbrella). Students at innovation charter schools are five times more likely to be college-ready in both EBRW and math compared to students at traditional IPS schools.

I like concrete examples where possible, so here’s two more specific examples to hopefully help the data come alive a bit more. First, Herron High School (an innovation charter school), had the highest college-ready rate among all public high schools in Marion County. Second, BELIEVE Circle City (a public charter school) had the 14^th highest college-ready rate for Black students out of all public high schools in the entire state of Indiana. No wonder IPS is considering forging an innovation school partnership with BELIEVE Circle City. They’d be wise to do so.

My aim here is not to sway anyone to embracing a certain school model or type of partnership. Instead, I think schools like Herron and BELIEVE prove a pretty simple point: it’s not rocket science to prepare our high schoolers for success in reading and math. While our state is not doing so well at this, individual schools and even pockets of schools are doing well at this. It’s high time we lifted our heads to better see which schools are getting this right and what we might learn from them.