overhaul of Indiana’s public K-12 school accountability ratings will take effect despite objections from Attorney General Todd Rokita, who criticized the new system as diluting the importance of academic proficiency.
Rokita and Gov. Mike Braun signed off on the State Board of Education rule this month, concluding a multiyear effort ordered by lawmakers to rewrite Indiana’s high school graduation and accountability requirements.
Braun on Wednesday brushed off Rokita’s criticism of the revised A-F ratings, which formally take effect for the 2026-27 school year.
A look at the new A-F model
The Board of Education unanimously approved the new statewide A-F model in March.
The new system assigns points to each student rather than using schoolwide averages and standardized test scores.
These student scores are based on academic proficiency, growth and other success indicators, which are then averaged within elementary, middle and high school grade bands and combined into the overall A-F grade assigned to each school.
Education officials praised the changes for better reflecting student progress, literacy and post-graduation readiness in place of the “all-or-nothing” model of the past.
The new approach mirrors changes to Indiana’s high school diplomas and diploma seals.
A school’s graduation rate and SAT performance each account for 10% of its score, combined with other measures like coursework, credentials, work-based learning and student engagement.
The state will calculate and publicly release letter grades under the new system for the 2025-26 school year, but will not take action against poorly rated schools during the transition year.
The rule is now final following signatures from Rokita and Braun on May 1.
Rokita argues new system blunts accountability
Rokita again raised concerns about the new accountability metrics in a letter to Braun this month, citing Board of Education metrics revealing few schools will be rated as D or F schools despite poor academic proficiency.
Thirty-three percent of Hoosier students in grades 3-8 are proficient in both English language arts and math on the state’s standardized exams, while fewer than one in four high school students meet SAT proficiency benchmarks, yet few schools will receive low ratings, Rokita wrote in the letter provided to the Indiana Capital Chronicle.
“Under any system driven by academic performance, these proficiency rates would be expected to produce far more low-rated schools,” he wrote. “They do not.”
Rokita criticized the Department of Education for not making its internal modeling public during the rulemaking process, writing the “surprisingly high number of schools” with higher-than-expected ratings is by design.
“In the extreme, a school where all students are fully proficient and a school where no students are proficient could receive the same rating if the nonproficient students satisfy various nonacademic indicators,” he wrote.
The Board of Education made revisions to the rule earlier this year to satisfy Rokita’s objections.
While those revisions satisfied his legal review, Rokita wrote he remains concerned the new system fails to accurately reflect student proficiency, which in turn could undermine the state’s school choice reforms.
He urged Braun to direct the Board of Education to reconsider its approach.
“If Indiana’s A-F system is to remain credible and transparent, it should clearly distinguish between schools where students meet those standards and those where they do not,” he wrote. “In practice, the Rule will likely not accomplish this task.”
Asked Wednesday about Rokita’s objections, Braun stood by Education Secretary Katie Jenner and the Board of Education.
“I’m going to trust the secretary of education, the boards that weigh into it,” Braun told reporters. “And to me, I’m always going to error on the side of more accountability, not less.”
Senior reporter Casey Smith contributed to this story.
The Indiana Capital Chronicle, where this story first published, is a nonprofit news site covering state government in Indiana.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indiana’s new A-F school accountability system clears last hurdles
Reporting by Mackenzi Klemann, Indiana Capital Chronicle / Indianapolis Star
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