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OPINION

Luke Kenley wants to toss out ISTEP

Russ Pulliam

Sen. Luke Kenley hopes to find common ground on the state’s endless arguments about education tests.

The Noblesville Republican, along with Sen. Ryan Mishler, wants to ditch the ever-changing ISTEP test in favor of something with a longer track record, such as the Iowa or Stanford tests, or the NWEA test already used in schools as a supplement to ISTEP.

Their point, found in Senate Bill 566, is to find one assessment that would replace the expanding layers of tests. The new ISTEP is not only too long. It’s one of too many exams.

“Everybody has a theory, like Common Core or the No Child Left Behind idea,” Kenley said. “We’re letting these arguments get between the teachers, the administrators and the parents.”

Kenley might be the right person to pull off a peace treaty in the education wars. He’s a workhorse in the General Assembly and often puts the lid on spending as head of the Senate Appropriations Committee. He has a business background and a Harvard MBA. A common-sense conservative, he’s in the middle of the ideological spectrum of the state Republican Party.

He learned a key lesson in the contentious debate over Common Core. The core was supposed to boost academic standards, but it was never clear what would be on new Common Core tests. Grass-roots conservatives objected to what they were seeing of Common Core, leading to the General Assembly’s rejection of the standards. But replacing the core evolved into another test, on top of all the other tests.

“Let’s go back to something we know has worked in the past,” Kenley said.

With a 10-year-old in school in northern Indiana, Mishler sees the flood of testing up close. “I think we’re losing the creativity in school,” he said. “All they seem to do is get ready for the tests.”

Those sentiments are echoed by State Board of Education member Andrea Neal. A history teacher at St. Richard’s Episcopal School, Neal favors a move toward test simplification. “We’re sucking the joy out of teaching and learning,” she said. “The testing should be an aside in school, but it’s become the main offering.

Give Kenley credit for trying to find a practical way out of the testing mania.

Pulliam is associate editor of The Star. Follow him on twitter: RBPulliam@twitter.com.