VCSC superintendent Dr. Himsel reacts to this spring’s standardized tests results

VIGO COUNTY, Ind. (WTWO/WAWV) — The results from ILEARN, AP, and SAT exams from this spring, are now available statewide.

This spring’s standardized tests show Vigo County students performed at an above average level on AP testing, SAT, and ILEARN when compared to schools similar in enrollment and demographic. However, the school corporation’s superintendent Dr. Chris Himsel said that these scores are just numbers on a paper.

“We don’t judge ourselves on test scores,” Himsel said. “All the standardized tests do is compare one kid to another kid. That is just a piece of a puzzle that we use in combination with AP results in terms of our career technical, in terms of our dual credit, graduation rates, and what we do internally in our assessments.”

He said that education is a much bigger picture.

“Education is not 13 one-year events,” Himsel said. “Education is one 13-year event.”

64 percent of the 936 Vigo County students who took the AP test received high enough scores to earn college credit. This year, the students that were involved in career technical education earned nearly 5,100 college credits and 264 industry recognized credentials.

Himsel said those numbers are far more important than test scores.

“As our incoming kindergarteners come in this year, we will try to figure out where they are when they came in on the first day, and what do we need to do to support them for the next 13 years so that when they become seniors, they can do better than the seniors I just named off,” Himsel said.

He said nothing the school corporation does would be possible without the endless hard work of the students, families, and staff.

“All of us are working together to try and make that progress,” Himsel said. “When we look at that overall progress and we see from where the child began with us in kindergarten and how they are progressing, I am very proud of the work all of those people are doing.”

Himsel added that after seeing the results of these scores combined with many other pieces of information throughout the school system, they are heading in the right direction.

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