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The Independent
6 days ago
- General
- The Independent
PHOTO ESSAY: Religious schools fill the education gap for Afghan boys
In Kabul's alleys and courtyards, boys in white caps and tunics recite verses from the Quran in a growing network of madrassas, the religious schools increasingly filling the gaps in Afghanistan's fractured education system. While public schools still operate, their reach has been weakened by limited resources, teacher shortages and decades of conflict. In response, many families now turn to madrassas, which offer structured learning rooted in Islamic teachings. Enrollment is booming. One school north of Kabul has grown from 35 students to more than 160 in five years. Most madrassas focus on Quranic memorization, jurisprudence and Arabic, but some now include basic secular subjects like math and English. Still, many fall short of national and international education standards, raising concerns about the long-term impact on students' broader development. Girls face even greater challenges. With secondary education banned under Taliban policy, some girls now attend madrassas as one of the few remaining options for continued learning though opportunities are limited even there. Critics say the madrassas are often centers of religious indoctrination and their increased popularity will have long-lasting consequences for Afghanistan's future. But for many children, these schools are the only form of education they can access. ___ Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
Yahoo
16-07-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
2025 ILEARN scores released. What the data shows about Indiana students
ILEARN standardized test scores showed that Hoosier students increased the most in math proficiency year over year, but English language arts (ELA) scores remained virtually unchanged. Statewide results showed that math ILEARN scores increased to 42.1% proficient this year compared to 40.7% in 2024. English language arts proficiency scores decreased slightly from 41% in 2024 to now being 40.6%. The scores, released July 16, 2025, indicate students have not returned to pre-COVID levels of proficiency, which, for math and ELA scores, were just under 48% proficient in 2019. Across all grade levels, most saw increases of more than one percentage point in math when compared to last year's results. The greatest increase was in the eighth grade, with a three percentage point increase. For English language scores, most grade levels increased around one percentage point, except for seventh and eighth grades, when compared to last year's scores. The seventh grade saw the largest decrease at just under four percentage points. The Indiana Department of Education results reflect scores taken on the spring 2025 ILEARN test. The ILEARN serves as the state's accountability test, assessing students in grades 3-8 in English language arts and math. It also tests grades four and six in science and tests fifth-grade students in social studies. Students take the tests in person on computers. State leaders consider the 2021 ILEARN scores the baseline scores, even though ILEARN has been administered since the 2018-19 school year. However, due to the learning disruptions that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic and the fact that no tests were administered in 2020, the state prefers to compare scores to those in 2021. State department leaders suggest that the reason for the drops in English language arts scores in the later grades could be due to Indiana's increased emphasis on early literacy that began in the 2022-23 school year, due to a historic $111 million investment from the Lilly Endowment in 2022. Indiana Secretary of Education Katie Jenner stated in a press release that this year's results indicate a need for increased focus on ELA in the adolescent grades. 'While we are positively moving and improving in math, there is an urgent need to support middle school students in English/language arts,' said Jenner. 'It is essential that our schools and parents/families continue to work together and stay laser-focused on increasing student learning and success.' Achievement gaps remain for student groups Student population groups, like ethnicity, socioeconomic status, special education status and English language learner status, have also not caught up to 2019 levels of proficiency. However, all student groups saw improvement in math from the 2021 and 2024 scores. Both Black and Hispanic students saw a two percentage point increase in their math scores from 2024. Most student groups' ELA scores either flatlined or decreased slightly year over year. The largest increase in ELA scores among the student groups was for special education with a 1.3 percentage point increase. Modified ILEARN testing coming for all schools in 2025-26 school year For the 2024-25 school year, around 1,350 schools participated in the pilot version of the modified ILEARN test. This redesign of ILEARN involves three 'checkpoint' tests throughout the school year, along with a shortened summative test at the end of the year. Starting in the 2025-26 school year, every school will conduct ILEARN this way. The purpose of the redesign is to help schools provide real-time data to teachers and families to catch struggling students faster. SAT results show increases in reading and writing, but no change in math The state also released the 2025 SAT results on Wednesday. The SAT serves as the state's required high school assessment and fulfills federal accountability requirements. All students take the SAT in the 11th grade. State law requires the 'passing' cut score for the SAT to be the same as the national cut score. This year's scores for the evidence-based reading and writing, or EBRW, show that students who met the cut score increased 2.7 percentage points from last year. In total, 54.5% of 11th-grade students met the reading and writing cut score this year. Math scores have continued to worsen in recent years, going from 32.9% of 11th-grade students meeting the math cut score in 2022 to 25.4% meeting the cut score this year. The 2025 math scores only increase slightly from last year's score of 25.2%. Search for your school's ILEARN results Contact IndyStar K-12 education reporter Caroline Beck at 317-618-5807 or CBeck@ Follow her on Twitter (X): @CarolineB_Indy. This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: 2025 ILEARN scores: See how your school did Solve the daily Crossword
Indianapolis Star
16-07-2025
- Science
- Indianapolis Star
2025 ILEARN scores released. What the data shows about Indiana students
ILEARN standardized test scores showed that Hoosier students increased the most in math proficiency year over year, but English language arts (ELA) scores remained virtually unchanged. Statewide results showed that math ILEARN scores increased to 42.1% proficient this year compared to 40.7% in 2024. English language arts proficiency scores decreased slightly from 41% in 2024 to now being 40.6%. The scores, released July 16, 2025, indicate students have not returned to pre-COVID levels of proficiency, which, for math and ELA scores, were just under 48% proficient in 2019. Across all grade levels, most saw increases of more than one percentage point in math when compared to last year's results. The greatest increase was in the eighth grade, with a three percentage point increase. For English language scores, most grade levels increased around one percentage point, except for seventh and eighth grades, when compared to last year's scores. The seventh grade saw the largest decrease at just under four percentage points. The Indiana Department of Education results reflect scores taken on the spring 2025 ILEARN test. The ILEARN serves as the state's accountability test, assessing students in grades 3-8 in English language arts and math. It also tests grades four and six in science and tests fifth-grade students in social studies. Students take the tests in person on computers. State leaders consider the 2021 ILEARN scores the baseline scores, even though ILEARN has been administered since the 2018-19 school year. However, due to the learning disruptions that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic and the fact that no tests were administered in 2020, the state prefers to compare scores to those in 2021. State department leaders suggest that the reason for the drops in English language arts scores in the later grades could be due to Indiana's increased emphasis on early literacy that began in the 2022-23 school year, due to a historic $111 million investment from the Lilly Endowment in 2022. Indiana Secretary of Education Katie Jenner stated in a press release that this year's results indicate a need for increased focus on ELA in the adolescent grades. 'While we are positively moving and improving in math, there is an urgent need to support middle school students in English/language arts,' said Jenner. 'It is essential that our schools and parents/families continue to work together and stay laser-focused on increasing student learning and success.' Student population groups, like ethnicity, socioeconomic status, special education status and English language learner status, have also not caught up to 2019 levels of proficiency. However, all student groups saw improvement in math from the 2021 and 2024 scores. Both Black and Hispanic students saw a two percentage point increase in their math scores from 2024. Most student groups' ELA scores either flatlined or decreased slightly year over year. The largest increase in ELA scores among the student groups was for special education with a 1.3 percentage point increase. For the 2024-25 school year, around 1,350 schools participated in the pilot version of the modified ILEARN test. This redesign of ILEARN involves three 'checkpoint' tests throughout the school year, along with a shortened summative test at the end of the year. Starting in the 2025-26 school year, every school will conduct ILEARN this way. The purpose of the redesign is to help schools provide real-time data to teachers and families to catch struggling students faster. The state also released the 2025 SAT results on Wednesday. The SAT serves as the state's required high school assessment and fulfills federal accountability requirements. All students take the SAT in the 11th grade. State law requires the 'passing' cut score for the SAT to be the same as the national cut score. This year's scores for the evidence-based reading and writing, or EBRW, show that students who met the cut score increased 2.7 percentage points from last year. In total, 54.5% of 11th-grade students met the reading and writing cut score this year. Math scores have continued to worsen in recent years, going from 32.9% of 11th-grade students meeting the math cut score in 2022 to 25.4% meeting the cut score this year. The 2025 math scores only increase slightly from last year's score of 25.2%.
16-07-2025
- Business
Bipartisan support helps foundations avoid tax increase in new Trump legislation
Two Republican senators and a broad bipartisan coalition of funders and nonprofits prevented a 600% increase in taxes levied on the endowments of the largest private foundations as part of President Donald Trump's the tax and spending legislation. Thanks to their support, when Trump signed the bill into law on July 4, taxes went up on the endowments of the largest universities, but not on the endowments of philanthropic foundations. 'I do have to say that this took some persuasion,' said Sen. Todd Young of Indiana in an interview with The Associated Press. The other champion was Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, who did not respond to an interview request. Together, they advocated to remove the provision which, at the high end, would levy a tax of 10% on the investment earnings of foundations with more than $5 billion in assets, up from the current rate of 1.39%. The move reveals both the power of philanthropic groups, especially conservative ones, to sway legislators and a split in the administration's coalition between those who want to protect the independence of private philanthropy and those who think the sector supports resistance to the president's agenda. Young said he spoke with leaders or representatives of a dozen foundations in his state to understand what it would mean to increase these taxes on foundation endowments. Though Young didn't name any specific leaders, Indiana is home to numerous major foundations — including one of America's largest foundations, the Lilly Endowment, which holds shares in the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly and reported assets of almost $80 billion at the end of last year. The Associated Press receives funding from the Lilly Endowment for its coverage of philanthropy and religion. Young said many in the Republican caucus appreciate the value of the investments private foundations make in their communities. 'Let's be honest here. The target of this excise tax increase was not the vast majority of private foundations. It was a handful of large foundations that are nationally known that have been accused of embracing and perpetuating certain woke policies and agendas,' Young said. While he didn't specify the specific foundations, Young was tapping into a critique of large progressive foundations brought by politicians like Vice President JD Vance. In a 2021 speech at the conservative think tank The Claremont Institute, Vance attacked foundations who fund movements for social justice and characterized their support for Black Lives Matter groups as 'investing in racial division.' 'We should eliminate all of the special privileges that exist for our nonprofit foundation class,' Vance said at the time. 'If you're spending all your money to teach racism to our children in their schools, why do we give you special tax breaks instead of taxing you more?' The White House has generally expressed support for that policy view. In an early executive order, Trump asked the attorney general to identify large foundations to investigate for civil rights violations, along with large corporations and universities. So far, the administration has not announced any investigations into foundations, even as the deadline included in the executive order has passed. Conservative philanthropic groups added their voice to oppose the proposed increase in taxes on foundations' endowment earnings. The Philanthropy Roundtable, which said it supports conservative and free market ideas, led a coalition to send a letter to Senate majority leader Sen. John Thune of Montana and Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho, who leads the Senate Finance Committee. 'We know policies that siphon private dollars away from charities to line the government's coffers are antithetical to conservative values,' the signatories wrote of the proposed tax on foundation assets. The legislation also contains a mix of provisions that impact funders, nonprofits and communities. It allows the vast majority of tax filers to take a charitable deduction of up to $1,000 for individuals and $2,000 for married couples, which advocates believe will increase the amount everyday donors give. The law also moved forward with a new cap on itemized deductions for the wealthiest tax filers, which advocates think will deter charitable giving. It also creates a new requirement for corporations to donate a minimum of 1% of their taxable income before receiving a tax benefit. Many corporations do not meet that threshold, meaning they may be discouraged from giving at all. United Philanthropy Forum is a membership organization for foundations, which has long advocated around issues important to the sector. Besides the recent spending bill, they've followed executive orders, provisions that would have threatened the tax-exempt status of organizations and cuts to social safety net programs. Matthew L. Evans, the forum's vice president of advocacy and external relations, said the forum shifted their strategy several years ago away from defending the interests of the sector to advocating for the communities which private philanthropy serves. 'It really is an all hands on deck moment because again this is such an unprecedented time for us,' Evans said. The forum was part of a coalition of nonprofit associations that helped organize a letter pushing back on multiple provisions in the spending bill, which almost 3,000 nonprofits signed on to support. But one of the most important messages nonprofit advocates were delivering to lawmakers was around the impacts of cuts to social safety net programs, said Kyle Caldwell, who leads the Council of Michigan Foundations. He said his organization has advocated for foundations and the communities they serve in Michigan for decades. 'If you think about all of the systems that were in place: access to health care, access to education, access to food. All of those really were targeted services to the most vulnerable in our community. That's where philanthropy invests most. That's where nonprofits act most," he said, adding that the cuts will "put higher demands on the nonprofit sector, which was already overburdened.' When asked about concerns over the impact of the cuts, Senator Young from Indiana said he thinks the bill strikes the right balance. 'What we have found is that when the economy grows, people give more because they to have more to give,' Young said. ___
Yahoo
16-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Bipartisan support helps foundations avoid tax increase in new Trump legislation
Two Republican senators and a broad bipartisan coalition of funders and nonprofits prevented a 600% increase in taxes levied on the endowments of the largest private foundations as part of President Donald Trump's the tax and spending legislation. Thanks to their support, when Trump signed the bill into law on July 4, taxes went up on the endowments of the largest universities, but not on the endowments of philanthropic foundations. 'I do have to say that this took some persuasion,' said Sen. Todd Young of Indiana in an interview with The Associated Press. The other champion was Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, who did not respond to an interview request. Together, they advocated to remove the provision which, at the high end, would levy a tax of 10% on the investment earnings of foundations with more than $5 billion in assets, up from the current rate of 1.39%. The move reveals both the power of philanthropic groups, especially conservative ones, to sway legislators and a split in the administration's coalition between those who want to protect the independence of private philanthropy and those who think the sector supports resistance to the president's agenda. Backing of Republican senators and conservative groups was key Young said he spoke with leaders or representatives of a dozen foundations in his state to understand what it would mean to increase these taxes on foundation endowments. Though Young didn't name any specific leaders, Indiana is home to numerous major foundations — including one of America's largest foundations, the Lilly Endowment, which holds shares in the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly and reported assets of almost $80 billion at the end of last year. The Associated Press receives funding from the Lilly Endowment for its coverage of philanthropy and religion. Young said many in the Republican caucus appreciate the value of the investments private foundations make in their communities. 'Let's be honest here. The target of this excise tax increase was not the vast majority of private foundations. It was a handful of large foundations that are nationally known that have been accused of embracing and perpetuating certain woke policies and agendas,' Young said. While he didn't specify the specific foundations, Young was tapping into a critique of large progressive foundations brought by politicians like Vice President JD Vance. In a 2021 speech at the conservative think tank The Claremont Institute, Vance attacked foundations who fund movements for social justice and characterized their support for Black Lives Matter groups as 'investing in racial division.' 'We should eliminate all of the special privileges that exist for our nonprofit foundation class,' Vance said at the time. 'If you're spending all your money to teach racism to our children in their schools, why do we give you special tax breaks instead of taxing you more?' The White House has generally expressed support for that policy view. In an early executive order, Trump asked the attorney general to identify large foundations to investigate for civil rights violations, along with large corporations and universities. So far, the administration has not announced any investigations into foundations, even as the deadline included in the executive order has passed. Conservative philanthropic groups added their voice to oppose the proposed increase in taxes on foundations' endowment earnings. The Philanthropy Roundtable, which said it supports conservative and free market ideas, led a coalition to send a letter to Senate majority leader Sen. John Thune of Montana and Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho, who leads the Senate Finance Committee. 'We know policies that siphon private dollars away from charities to line the government's coffers are antithetical to conservative values,' the signatories wrote of the proposed tax on foundation assets. Other provisions include a charitable deduction but also new limits on company giving The legislation also contains a mix of provisions that impact funders, nonprofits and communities. It allows the vast majority of tax filers to take a charitable deduction of up to $1,000 for individuals and $2,000 for married couples, which advocates believe will increase the amount everyday donors give. The law also moved forward with a new cap on itemized deductions for the wealthiest tax filers, which advocates think will deter charitable giving. It also creates a new requirement for corporations to donate a minimum of 1% of their taxable income before receiving a tax benefit. Many corporations do not meet that threshold, meaning they may be discouraged from giving at all. United Philanthropy Forum is a membership organization for foundations, which has long advocated around issues important to the sector. Besides the recent spending bill, they've followed executive orders, provisions that would have threatened the tax-exempt status of organizations and cuts to social safety net programs. Matthew L. Evans, the forum's vice president of advocacy and external relations, said the forum shifted their strategy several years ago away from defending the interests of the sector to advocating for the communities which private philanthropy serves. 'It really is an all hands on deck moment because again this is such an unprecedented time for us,' Evans said. The forum was part of a coalition of nonprofit associations that helped organize a letter pushing back on multiple provisions in the spending bill, which almost 3,000 nonprofits signed on to support. But one of the most important messages nonprofit advocates were delivering to lawmakers was around the impacts of cuts to social safety net programs, said Kyle Caldwell, who leads the Council of Michigan Foundations. He said his organization has advocated for foundations and the communities they serve in Michigan for decades. 'If you think about all of the systems that were in place: access to health care, access to education, access to food. All of those really were targeted services to the most vulnerable in our community. That's where philanthropy invests most. That's where nonprofits act most," he said, adding that the cuts will "put higher demands on the nonprofit sector, which was already overburdened.' When asked about concerns over the impact of the cuts, Senator Young from Indiana said he thinks the bill strikes the right balance. 'What we have found is that when the economy grows, people give more because they to have more to give,' Young said. ___ Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP's philanthropy coverage, visit Sign in to access your portfolio
