MORGAN COUNTY — Last week brought more disappointment to Indiana school districts looking to get students back on track after the pandemic, as scores for the Indiana Learning Evaluation and Readiness Network (ILEARN) test showed only modest increases in math scores since last year, and a slight decline in English scores.
The ILEARN is a standardized test for grades 3-8, testing students’ proficiency in English/Language Arts and math since it was adopted in 2019. Last year, 41 percent of Indiana students were proficient in ELA, while 40.7 percent of students were proficient in math. Scores released July 16 indicate that 40.6 percent of Indiana students are proficient in ELA this year, while only 42.1 percent are proficient in math.
While math scores have improved slightly, the results of the 2025 assessment are sure to be disheartening to school districts throughout the state who have struggled to cope with the learning loss that stemmed from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Morgan County is no exception.
Reading scores declined from last year in the Metropolitan School District of Martinsville (MSD), Mooresville Schools and the Monroe-Gregg school district.
Math scores likewise decreased for MSD and Monroe-Gregg, and both districts are below the state average in ELA and math.
The MSD of Martinsville saw a 3.3 percent drop in ELA scores from last year, with 35.7 percent of proficient students falling to 32.4 percent. Math scores dropped slightly, too, falling from 40.8 percent proficiency down to 40.2 percent.
While Mooresville’s reading scores dropped only slightly — from 43.4 percent proficient down to 43.3 percent — the district’s math scores improved by 4.1 percent, from 45.3 percent proficient to 49.4 percent. These scores are above the state average, but still represent less than half of the district’s students who are proficient in math and reading.
The district’s private schools did not fare much better.
Tabernacle Christian School in Martinsville saw declining reading scores, going from 40.9 percent proficiency down to 38.3 percent. Math scores improved, from 39.8 percent proficient to 40.1 percent, though both percentages are still below the state average.
Mooresville Christian Academy (MCA) had better scores, but its students still performed worse this year than last year. Last year saw 50.7 percent of students proficient in ELA and 52.6 percent proficient in math, but those numbers have fallen to 45.8 percent and 49.4 percent in ELA and math, respectively.
While MCA’s numbers are above the state average, they are comparable to the more affordable public school option in Mooresville, with both Mooresville Schools and MCA having identical math scores.
Morgan County’s neighboring districts — and its competitors in an era of school choice — generally fare better on the ILEARN test in both ELA and math.
While reading scores all declined in Bloomington, Spencer, Plainfield and Center Grove from last year, they all remain higher than most Morgan County schools — sometimes far higher.
Plainfield and Center Grove each had proficiency rates of higher than 50 percent in ELA, and Bloomington schools saw 45.9 percent proficient in ELA, higher than all Morgan County districts. Students in Spencer performed better than MSD, Monroe-Gregg and Eminence Community Schools.
The same is true for math. Students in Bloomington and Plainfield each showed a higher than 50 percent proficiency in math, while students in Center Grove showed higher than 60 percent. Spencer’s math scores were higher than three of the four Morgan County public school districts, with the exception of Mooresville Schools.
It has now been more than five years since the United States went on lockdown in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, but the effects continue to linger, especially for school-aged children. Less than half of Indiana students are proficient in reading and math, and for many students in Morgan County, that picture is even bleaker.
Reactions
The Correspondent spoke with MSD Superintendent Eric Bowlen and Mooresville Schools Superintendent Jake Allen to get their reactions to the ILEARN scores.
Bowlen said the same thing he said last year in reaction to Martinsville’s low scores — a test score is just a “snapshot in time.”
“One assessment is not the totality of a student’s intelligence,” Bowlen said. “We’re obviously not happy about it, though. I’m not gonna make an excuse. We have to be better.”
Bowlen said a possible contributing factor to the district’s low scores was the state’s new “Checkpoints” program, which was intended to allow school districts to receive ILEARN data more quickly in order to determine what adjustments teachers could make to improve scores. But Bowlen said the remediation resources the program was supposed to provide were lacking, and while he likes the idea of Checkpoints, he was disappointed by the state’s execution this year.
Allen, meanwhile, said he was proud of the district’s progress in math, and was pleased that Mooresville showed the highest scores in the county. Still, he said, scores all around the state are disappointing.
“We still have a lot of work to do,” Allen said. “We wouldn’t even be happy with, say, 70 percent (proficient), if we were getting that. We ideally want to be shooting to be in the 80s or 90s. So, we’re obviously not satisfied being in the 40s.”
Allen did say that he believed the ILEARN assessment to be flawed, however, and he pointed to Indiana’s position in national rankings as evidence. The results from the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) ranks Indiana fourth-graders sixth in the nation in reading and ninth in the nation in math. Indiana eighth-graders are ranked sixth and 13th in reading and math, respectively.
The discrepancy between Indiana’s ILEARN scores and its NAEP ranking indicate problems with the state’s assessment, Allen said, and he added that the ILEARN exams seem to be much more rigorous than other standardized tests.
Nevertheless, he believes the district has room to improve.
