HB 1498 revises Indiana’s school accountability framework. The bill repeals existing statutory provisions that governed how the Department of Education and State Board of Education measured school improvement and replaces them with a new timeline for developing a performance-designation methodology. Under the bill, the State Board must create a new school-performance methodology by December 31, 2025, and then use that methodology to assign schools an A through F designation by December 31, 2026. The new system must rely on data from the department’s dashboard, include third-grade reading proficiency measures, statewide summative assessment results, and prioritize diploma seals, while also allowing the board to consider other relevant factors.
The bill also makes several related changes to school grading and accountability rules. It preserves and updates provisions allowing certain schools, including new schools and innovation network schools, to receive a “null” or “no letter grade” designation in limited circumstances, and it requires the department to post proficiency and growth scores for schools that receive that designation. For the 2024-2025 school year, the bill directs the State Board to assign a null/no-letter-grade status to schools, school corporations, and adult high schools. It also extends the expiration date of a separate chapter related to school accountability from January 1, 2026, to January 1, 2027, and directs the department to develop proposals to align diploma waiver statutes with new diploma requirements, including possibly eliminating diploma waivers.
The bill’s impact on state law is substantial because it rewrites the statutory framework for evaluating school performance and shifts the state toward a new accountability model. It repeals older provisions that emphasized prior performance-based accreditation and replaces them with a new A-F designation system tied to updated data sources and indicators. It also affects the rules and procedures used by the State Board of Education, the Department of Education, school corporations, charter schools, innovation network schools, adult high schools, and schools serving students with developmental, intellectual, or behavioral challenges.
The general sentiment around the bill appears to be supportive but not unanimous. It passed the House and Senate with clear majorities, and the final House concurrence vote was 65-25, suggesting broad legislative backing for updating school accountability measures. At the same time, the failed House amendment and the size of the dissenting votes indicate that some lawmakers had concerns about the details of the accountability changes or the pace and structure of the transition.
The main points of contention appear to center on how schools should be measured, what data should matter most, and how much flexibility should exist for schools that do not fit standard accountability models. The bill’s treatment of “null” or “no letter grade” designations, especially for innovation network schools and schools serving students with significant challenges, suggests concern about fairness and accuracy in grading. Another likely area of debate is the move toward a new A-F system and the potential elimination of diploma waivers, which may have raised questions about student readiness, remediation, and the consequences of stricter accountability standards.
HB 1498 repeals and replaces key provisions in Indiana Code chapter 20-31-8 governing school performance categories, directing the State Board of Education to adopt a new accountability methodology and later assign A-F school designations based on that methodology. It also extends and updates related expiration dates, preserves limited null/no-letter-grade options for certain schools, requires public posting of proficiency and growth scores for schools receiving that designation, and directs the Department of Education to propose changes to diploma waiver statutes to align with new diploma requirements.
The bill appears to have been generally favored by legislative majorities, as reflected in its passage through both chambers and the strong final concurrence vote in the House. However, the presence of a failed amendment and a meaningful minority of no votes indicates that the bill was not universally accepted and that some lawmakers were concerned about the specifics of the accountability revisions and their effects on schools and students.
The most notable disagreements likely involved the design of the new school accountability system, including whether the state should rely more heavily on dashboard data, reading proficiency, summative assessments, and diploma seals. Another point of contention is the use of null/no-letter-grade designations for schools in transition or schools serving specialized student populations, which some may view as necessary flexibility and others as a loophole that weakens accountability. The proposal to align or possibly eliminate diploma waivers may also have been controversial because it affects students who do not meet new diploma requirements and the schools that serve them.