(SBT24/7News) The Indiana Department of Education released statewide ISTEP scores Wednesday morning, highlighting slight overall gains in both English/language arts and mathematics.

The ISTEP was administered in September to students in grades three through 10. As a state, students in all grades improved 0.6 percent to 71 percent passing in English/language arts and nearly a full percent to 73.8 percent passing in math.

"Though we will not be satisfied until every student passes ISTEP-Plus, it is encouraging to see scores moving in the right direction for the state as a whole," said Suellen Reed, the state’s superintendent of public instruction. "What the statewide numbers don’t reflect are the larger gains being made by many of our local schools, even those with challenging student populations."

The ISTEP — an acronym for Indiana Statewide Testing for Education Progress — is the state’s achievement gauge used for both state and federal accountability requirements.

Results were mixed among local school corporations.

Overall, the South Bend Community School Corp., was down 0.6 percent in English/language arts to 56.5 percent passing, but up 0.5 percent to 59.1 percent passing in math.

There were plenty of ups and downs.

"That’s my general sense as I’ve looked at it," said Robert L. Zimmerman, superintendent of South Bend schools. "The ups and downs don’t seem to be substantial for the most part."

The corporation’s most obvious successes were in both eighth- and ninth-grade math. The eighth-graders improved 5 percentage points to 61 percent passing, while the ninth- graders improved 4 points to 56 percent passing.

Both still are well below state averages.

Once again, the corporation’s two magnet academies — Kennedy Primary and LaSalle Intermediate — excelled, scoring above 90 percent passing in both disciplines at each grade level.

The corporation’s third magnet school, Tarkington Traditional School, also was indicative of the up-and-down scores. While one grade level improved 14 percentage points in math, the other dropped 14 percentage points.

Such a fluctuation, however, is not unusual as the cross-section of students gets smaller, Zimmerman pointed out.

Even with the perceived plateau, there are plenty of success stories scattered throughout South Bend’s numbers.

There are the Marquette Primary Center third-graders who improved a corporation high 28 points to 60 percent passing in math.

There are the Navarre Intermediate Center seventh-graders who improved 11 percentage points in English/language arts and 13 points in math.

And there are Hamilton Primary third-graders who improved 16 points to 85 percent passing in English/language arts. Not to be outdone, the Hamilton fourth-graders improved 7 points to 88 percent passing.

Hamilton is the only school in the corporation to improve across the board.

"Hamilton is an interesting one," Zimmerman said. "We’ve been talking a lot about Hamilton the last few days and what we’re doing there."

Zimmerman said there is much more information to be gleaned from Wednesday’s ISTEP data than simply passing percentages. In fact, such a strong emphasis on passing percentages can mask much of the improvement a corporation actually makes from year to year, he said.

He added that it’s possible to make positive movement even when the percentage passing numbers are stagnant.

Students who may have been missing the mark by 20 points could be closing in, but the hard numbers don’t offer that insight.

"When you’re in these flat stages like we are," Zimmerman said, "most of the time you’re not flat. Something is happening. With further analysis we can try and figure that out."