Iowa Tests of Basic Skills

When students take the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS), they tackle questions related to vocabulary, reading comprehension, math, science and social studies, according to The Riverside Publishing Company’s website. Based on the results of these assessments, teachers get to see how their students are performing and which individuals may be in need of additional instruction.

This is the case with the Clarinda Community School District in Iowa, where scores from the ITBS and Iowa Assessments were used to figure out which students needed to participate in the District’s summer school program, the Clarinda Herald-Journal reported. In total, about 15 pupils from each grade level will take classes between May 30 and June 28.

"I’m excited about the progress that is going to be made in their learning," Gary McNeal, Clarinda’s Middle School principal, told the news source. "It’s a way to help catch up kids who have gaps in their learning for whatever reason."

Students who are selected for the summer program will have to attend classes at Clarinda Middle School two times a week for three hours a day.

The Iowa City Community School District recently released the results of the Iowa Assessments, which third- through eleventh-graders took last October, KCRG reported. Based on students’ scores, they did not perform as well as they had in previous years on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS), which the Assessments have replaced.

According to the news source, the District typically ranked between the low 70s and 90s. However, the recent results reveal that student scores were mostly between the 50s and 70s. While these numbers are lower than usual, there are a few reasons why this may have occurred.

Pam Ehly, the District’s director of curriculum, told the news outlet that the fact that students were taking a new test was one reason why scores were low. Another was that the Iowa Assessments are normative, which means that test takers are compared to one another and responses are re-normed.

Overall, Ehly and the District’s superintendent are pleased with the first set of results from the Iowa Assessments.

The District’s third- through eleventh-graders were tested on a variety of subjects, such as reading, vocabulary, math, science, social studies and computation, according to The University of Iowa’s website.

  The more diverse the country’s population becomes, the more English language learners there will be in the nation’s classrooms. In fact, Education Week reported that between the 1997-1998 and 2008-2009 academic years, the number of these students enrolled in public schools increased by 51 percent.

  In Iowa, nearly a quarter of the state’s English language learners are attending classes in the Des Moines Public Schools District, according to The Des Moines Register. More than 5,100 children in the District are receiving help developing their English reading and writing skills. All together, these students speak more than 80 different languages.

  Several of Des Moines’ newest residents come from the Asian countries of Bhutan and Myanmar, the news source stated. In some cases, students from these nations cannot even write or read in their native language, which makes picking up English more difficult.

  Due to the high number of students in need of language assistance, District officials have considered offering more courses for English language learners, according to the news outlet. The District’s Vinh Nguyen told the news outlet that the longer English language learners remain in the Schools’ English proficiency program, the better their results on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS).

The University of Iowa College of Education's Iowa Testing Programs has replaced the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS) with the Iowa Assessments, the Iowa City Press Citizen reported. According to officials behind the revamped tests, the changes will lead to benefits for both students and teachers.

For instance, Catherine Welch, director of statewide testing programs at the University, told the news source that the Iowa Assessments allow educators to track students' growth from year to year.

"They will have reports that provide more detailed information about a student’s individual performance at a standard level," Welch told the news outlet. "It can serve as a guide for how a child has changed over the years and where that child needs additional help and where more progress is expected."

Welch added that the revised tests were designed based on content that makes up the Iowa Core and the Common Core State Standards.

According to the University's website, the Iowa Assessments are available at different levels and measure students' abilities in broad academic areas, such as reading, social studies, math and science. The tests also focus on important skills, including the capitalization of words and punctuation.

For example, the District managed to achieve an attendance rate of 96.8 percent, which, according to the news source, is higher than other North Shore schools. Furthermore, many Whitefish students showed that they wanted to take part in school activities outside of the classroom as well. More than 80 percent of middle and high school pupils participate in extracurricular activities on a yearly basis.

In terms of standardized assessments, students in the third, fifth and seventh grades managed to perform at an average of 2.6 years above grade level in reading, language arts and math on last year's Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS), the news outlet stated.

While subject matter on these assessments varies depending on the test level, the ITBS also measures students' abilities in the areas of listening, social studies, science and computation, according to the University of Iowa's College of Education website.

"We are proud of all of those results and how they work together in terms of providing very excellent educational performance," Gavigan said, as quoted by the news source. 

Ohio's St. Helen School is currently celebrating its 50th anniversary, The News-Herald reported. Among the Catholic parish institution's many academic accomplishments have been awards and high scores on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS).

What sets the School apart from other institutions is the fact that when it opened in 1961, students were given unicycles to ride through the halls, the news source stated. This was due to Reverend James Moran's belief that pupils should be physically fit.

Unicycles are no longer a part of the education process at St. Helen, which serves students in preschool through the eighth grade, according to the news outlet. The School is also the home of the new Cargill Science Center, a state-of-the-art facility where young learners can conduct experiments.

In addition, the news source reported that St. Helen students have consistently scored in the ITBS' upper 10 percent.

The ITBS, which can be adopted by states outside of Iowa, has undergone several changes this school year, including a change in name to the Iowa Assessments, according to The Gazette. 

On September 15, the U.S. Department of Education released the names of the 305 schools across the country that have been selected as 2011 National Blue Ribbon Schools. Among these institutions were 49 private schools, including St. Barnabas Catholic School in Indiana.

According to The News-Leader, St. Barnabas earned the honor based on several academic factors, such as a rigorous curriculum, high expectations and students' scores on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS). In fact, the school's performance was judged based on assessment scores from the last five years.

St. Barnabas uses the ITBS to evaluate its 730 students, the news source reported. The assessment measures test takers' abilities across several academic areas, including math, reading and language.

"Being named a National Blue Ribbon School is very exciting for our whole parish community," Principal Kimberly Browning told the news outlet. "Our past and current students, parents and teachers have worked diligently to achieve at the highest levels."

According to the news source, the U.S. Department of Education has awarded Blue Ribbons since 1982 to highlight examples of the best school leadership and teaching practices. 

The Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS) is provided by the University of Iowa's College of Education and is used to measure student progress in kindergarten through the eighth grade, according to the institution's website. Even though the assessment is designed for pupils within the state of Iowa, school districts across the U.S. are able to administer this voluntary test.

Saint Gabriel School in Windsor, Connecticut, is a private institution that administered the ITBS to its students, The Hartford Courant reported. These pupils did so well on the assessment that they will be recognized as a 2011 Blue Ribbon School for academic excellence by the U.S. Department of Education.

In order to receive the designation as a Blue Ribbon School, students must have taken the ITBS and scored within the 85th percentile, the news source stated. Pupils at Saint Gabriel managed to surpass this criteria and placed in the 90th percentile. Patricia Martin, the School's principal, credits the high scores to her institution's educators, who provide a customized approach to teaching that takes students' strengths and weaknesses into account.

"Saint Gabriel achieves excellence quietly, but very effectively as evidenced by this distinguished recognition," Dale R. Hoyt, the superintendent of Catholic Schools for the Archdiocese of Hartford, told the news outlet.  

Students at Butler Elementary School in Iowa will be greeted by several changes when they resume classes for the new school year, including more classmates and classrooms, The Messenger reported.

The closing of Hillcrest Elementary School in Fort Dodge is the reason behind Butler's larger student population, according to the news source. The institution accepted all of Hillcrest's pupils, as well as other learners from the district. As a result, there are now more than 460 pupils at Butler.

To accommodate all of these students, Butler has extended its facility to include four new classrooms, the news outlet reported. In addition, four Hillcrest teachers have transitioned to Butler, where instructors now meet for 40 minutes each day to discuss their students' progress.

As a result of the school's physical and academic changes, students' test scores have increased, especially in the areas of math and reading, the news source reported. Butler now boasts 82 percent proficiency in reading, which is above the 40th percentile on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS).

This assessment is designed by the University of Iowa College of Education to test the abilities of students in kindergarten through the eighth grade, according to the institution's website.

The University of Iowa's College of Education provides schools throughout the state with an opportunity to gauge the effectiveness of their teaching through the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS). According to the institution's website, this assessment is provided to students in kindergarten through the eighth grade.

Irving Elementary School in Waterloo, Iowa is one institution that has taken steps to improve the quality of its academic programs, and, as a result, its students' progress, the Waterloo Daily Courier reported.

Changes at Irving began with the new school year on August 8, according to the news source. Now, students have the option of entering their classrooms at 8:15 a.m., which is 35 minutes before the official start of the school day. For teachers, having pupils in their seats early provides a chance to go over objectives and goals. This early classroom time also offers students a chance to complete homework assignments that may have been neglected the night before.

"It's just an extra layer of support," Frederick Zimmerman, a fifth-grade teacher at Irving, told the news source. "Give me a month. You'll see the progress."

Zimmerman added that the early classroom time helps ensure that students are engaged when the day officially begins.

The majority of K-8 students in the state of Iowa participate in the Iowa Statewide Testing Program and take the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS), according to the website for The University of Iowa, the institution that administers the assessment.

In the North Winneshiek School, educators set specific goals with each student and emphasized the importance of doing well on the assessment, The Decorah Newspapers reported.

The No Child Left Behind Act states that students who achieve ITBS scores within the 41st to 99th percentile for reading comprehension, mathematics total and science are considered to be proficient, according to the news source. However, any pupils who score below this range are not.

In North Winneshiek, ITBS results revealed that students in grades three through eight performed the strongest in science, the news outlet reported, with mathematics and reading their next best subjects, respectively.

While Tim Dugger, the superintendent of the school, was quoted by the news source as saying that it gets harder for institutions to achieve adequate yearly progress (AYP) each year, the school managed to meet its AYP goals across several key areas. For instance, 84 percent of fifth graders were found to be proficient in reading. 

Officials from Challenger School, a private institution in Utah, recently announced that this year, its students received the highest scores on their Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS) in the school's history.

Their 2011 test results indicated that the school's kindergarten students scored in the 96th percentile, meaning that they had better results than 96 percent of the other children who took the assessment. Additionally, the eighth-grade students were placed in the 98th percentile, scoring higher than 98 percent of other eighth-grade pupils who took the ITBS.

Even when Challenger School children were compared to other private schools exclusively, as opposed to all institutions that administer the assessment, officials said the students still performed much better than average.

While the results of this year's ITBS scores were particularly high, Barbara Baker, chief executive officer and founder of the school, said that the pupils have always received good results.

“Challenger students have always performed extraordinarily well on national standardized tests, consistently averaging in the top 10 percent nationally," Baker said. "We’re proud of that record and are committed to maintaining it." 

Since the inception of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001, states have been subjecting students to standardized tests in order to gauge performance. There are a variety of standardized tests available such as the Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS) and the Stanford Achievement Test (SAT 10), but some states are looking to adopt unified standards.

The Common Core State Standards initiative has been adopted by 38 states thus far, with the goal of providing a clear understanding of how students in certain areas match up against the rest of the nation. States that have not yet chosen to adopt the standards include Washington, Idaho, Montana, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Missouri, Maine, Virginia, Alabama, Texas and Alaska.

The standards' website suggests that adopting this form of testing could be beneficial to schools, as they provide understandable content through building on the strengths of current state standards. There is also evidence to prove that they work in determining whether or not students are prepared for college.