Educators and charter leaders urge changes to Indiana school accountability rule at public hearing

A public hearing hosted by the Indiana Department of Education on Nov. 17, 2025 drew educators, charter leaders, parents and multilingual‑education advocates to comment on LSA Document 25-370, the department’s proposed rule adding 511 6.2-12 to Indiana’s school accountability framework. Speakers praised the shift to multiple measures but urged changes to testing frequency, how language acquisition is credited for multilingual learners, and how high‑school progress is measured.

Billy Hotton Meyer, a staff attorney at the Indiana Department of Education, opened the hearing under Indiana Code 4-22-2-26, explained a five‑minute limit for oral comments, and said all written and spoken comments will be provided to the board for its consideration.

Stacy, speaking for the Indiana State Teachers Association, welcomed the move away from a single snapshot test and toward measures that include individual student growth, but reiterated the association’s continued opposition to an A-to-F letter‑grade system, calling it potentially punitive to students and communities. Stacy urged the board to add professional‑accountability metrics (licensed educators, retention and professional development), resource‑accountability indicators (annual salary changes and socioeconomic baselines), and school climate measures such as class size and administrative feedback.

“My plea is that we protect academic rigor, reward performance and innovation and ultimately let schools be schools,” said Steven Ship, headmaster of Seven Oaks Classical School, who warned the proposed model could push K–2 and choice schools to reshape priorities toward credentialing and workplace metrics at the expense of foundational literacy and core academic instruction. Ship also pressed for clearer scoring rules, a cost–benefit analysis of implementation burdens, expanded waiver flexibility for innovative schools, and less frequent reporting—suggesting data collection no more than once every two years.

Multilingual‑education advocates made a recurring request: recognize language‑acquisition growth for multilingual learners independently of I‑Read results. Katie Dule, executive director of Enlas Academy, and Carla Holder, co‑founder of the Multilingual Education Reform Collective and Enlas’s director of academic language, said the draft limits language‑acquisition credit by requiring a passing I‑Read result for third‑grade recognition, which they described as inequitable for students still developing academic English. Holder cited research and coaching presented at IDOE sessions, noting that oral language development is a strong predictor of reading comprehension and that cognitive academic language proficiency can take five to seven years to develop. “Language is the predictor of reading comprehension,” Holder said, urging that WEDA language‑growth measures be credited for third graders just as they are in other grade bands.

Representing a group of roughly two dozen parent and community advocates, Justin Oler of Stanford Children Indiana supported a transparent accountability system that includes objective test‑based measures such as iLearn, and recommended keeping an ‘nth‑grade on‑track’ measure for high school and adding growth goals targeted at the lowest quartile of students so that persistent low performance is not masked by growth bonuses.

Katie Dorsy, senior vice president for academic affairs at Heron Classical Schools, proposed adding a PSAT‑11 proficiency metric and a growth metric from PSAT‑10 to PSAT‑11 to better capture 9–12 academic progress and align high‑school growth measurement with K–8 practices.

Cody Stipes expressed general support for the overall direction of the model while echoing calls to remove the I‑Read restriction on language‑acquisition credit and to consider Dule’s and Holder’s recommendations.

No votes or formal decisions were taken at the hearing. Meyer closed the session after callers finished speaking, reminded attendees they could submit written comments via JotForm or email, and said all comments will be passed to the board for consideration before final adoption.

Next steps: The department will accept written comments submitted after the hearing and provide all received input to the board as it finalizes the proposed rule. The record does not include a timeline for the board’s final action.