ISTEP, WIDA, ASVAB

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by McKayla Rolon

 

   What are they and why do they matter to you?

   ISTEP is an Indiana state required test that all students must pass to graduate which includes English and Mathematics. Here at GHS, they give you multiple chances to pass, starting from sophomore year all the way up to senior year.

   “It’s a state mandated test that all students have to take to see if students have gained proper knowledge in math and English. They start by taking it at the 10th grade level saying, yea, these are students that fulfil the requirements saying they are college ready,” said GHS teacher, Jen Eberly.

“It is a state test that is supposed to be a minimum competency test for high school sophomores. They want almost everybody to pass it, although that is not the case,” said GHS Head Principal, Dr. Barry Younghans.

 ASVAB is a military exam that students who do not pass ISTEP must take.

“At first, ISTEP was their only option, so they had to pass it in order to graduate, but that’s kind of difficult sometimes because the test has changed quite a bit, and has gotten much, much harder, so students officials started looking at that, and started thinking about other pathways to allow students to graduate. Your entire high school career is all wrapped into this one test. They started coming up with these things called Pathways, and right now ASVAB is one of those pathways,” said Eberly.  

“ASVAB is the Arm Services Aptitude Vocational Battery test. It identifies for the military if you go into the military the kinds of skills you would be suited to do. We don’t release any student information to the military they only send us the scores. If you were to go into the military, you don’t take the test again, we just have to send the score back to the military,” said Younghans.

WIDA is a test that includes writing, reading, listening, and speaking for bilingual students whose home language is different then English. They take these tests so that the school can understand that they can understand fluent English in multiple forms, and is not required to graduate, but you must pass it twice in a row to never take it again.

“Any student who comes in and registers as a student of goshen community schools there is a home language survey. There are three questions, the language spoken by the students, the language spoken at home, and the language that student has studied in. If any of those answers come up for anything other than English then that student is then tested to see if they are an EL student.  It compares their skills to a native English speaker,” said Eberly.

   “If a student’s main language is something other than English then they take the WIDA. They must take it proficiently for two years in a row to not have to take it again,” said Younghans.

 

Author

lshetler

GHS English Teacher

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