Indianapolis Public Schools Outpace State in Early Literacy Gains

As school systems nationwide look for effective ways to strengthen early literacy, Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) offers an encouraging example of how a districtwide approach can accelerate student progress.

IPS has long worked to address a central challenge: ensuring more students can read proficiently by the end of third grade. While individual schools experienced success, the district wanted to build the instructional consistency needed to accelerate literacy growth across all its elementary schools.

IPS partnered with NIET to support all 30 IPS elementary schools to strengthen instruction and create greater consistency across classrooms. The work focused on strengthening Instructional Leadership Teams (ILT) as the key lever for improving literacy instruction within classrooms and across schools.
Strengthening ILTs has become a district priority under the leadership of IPS Superintendent Dr. Aleesia Johnson because of their direct impact on teaching and student outcomes.

“We believe that if we have a strong ILT, then we can create stronger teachers who will create stronger learning opportunities for our kids, and therefore create stronger student outcomes,” Johnson said.

NIET specialists supported school leaders in building strong, sustainable ILT structures. Through hands-on coaching, specialists helped IPS strengthen the planning and facilitation of ILT meetings. School leaders also learned to use student data and examine student work more effectively to help teachers respond to student needs. As these structures and practices took hold, students began making significant gains in early literacy.

Two Consecutive Years of Accelerated Literacy Growth

On the 2025-2026 IREAD assessment, the district’s proficiency rate increased by 3.7 percentage points, as compared to the state’s improvement of 1.4-percentage points. This marks the second consecutive year that IPS’ year-over-year gains on Indiana’s literacy assessment for third graders have outpaced statewide growth. IPS also surpassed its pre-pandemic performance, increasing from 71.4% proficiency in 2019 to 73.7% in 2026.

Several schools accomplished particularly notable results. Ernie Pyle School 90 increased proficiency by 30.6 percentage points, James Russell Lowell School 51 gained 23.1 points, and Thomas Gregg Neighborhood School increased by 15.3 points. Merle Sidener Academy 59 reached 100% proficiency, up from 97.9% the previous year.

It’s not just elementary schools making gains in student achievement. Last school year, IPS high school students earned more than 10,000 college credits, setting a district record and representing a 46% increase from the previous year.

In an announcement on the district’s website, Johnson shared that these results are a reflection of the incredible work happening every day in IPS classrooms.

“Our students and educators are demonstrating that sustained, focused investment in literacy can produce meaningful results. We are proud that our gains continue to outpace statewide growth, and that we have now surpassed our pre-pandemic performance. At the same time, we know this work is far from finished. Every student deserves to be a strong reader, and we will continue to provide the resources, support and opportunities our students need to succeed,” said Johnson.

The latest results offer encouraging evidence of IPS’ continued progress. By investing in educators and ILTs, IPS is building the systems needed to extend successful practices across schools and help more students develop the foundational reading skills they need to succeed.