MUKILTEO – Once a high-profile gauge of student performance in Washington state, the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills have nearly fallen off the map in Snohomish County.
Only the Mukilteo School District gives them to second- and fifth-graders, in part for placement in a third-grade program for gifted students and sixth-grade math classes.
Hundreds of Mukilteo students have taken the timed multiple-choice tests in recent weeks. Statewide, the traditional basic skills tests, which rank students with others nationwide, have been supplanted by the Washington Assessment of Student Learning.
For years, the Iowa tests were the main feedback for families outside of their children’s schoolwork.
“It was a big deal, because it was the only deal,” said Don Schmitz, Mukilteo’s director of assessment and program evaluation.
Schmitz said the exams remain helpful, particularly among young students, in monitoring their progress in basic skills.
“It probably has a better place at that level,” Schmitz said.
It’s one more way for the school district to track academic progress, he added.
The Monroe School District also uses the Iowa tests, but only as part of the qualification process for the gifted program if students do not have recent WASL scores on file.
The Iowa tests used to be required, but the Legislature last year dropped that mandate. The WASL exams have been given to students in grades four, seven and 10 for several years.
Beginning this year, because of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, WASL-like exams will be extended to grades three through eight as well.
Passing the high school WASL tests will be a graduation requirement starting with the class of 2008.
The Evergreen Freedom Foundation, a conservative public policy research organization, urged the Legislature in 2005 to keep the Iowa tests or find an equally valid test for another source of information on how students are performing.
“Dropping the tests would mean burning red flags,” it said in a policy paper. “We need to heed them instead.”
Others believe the Iowa tests are not that useful, particularly in guiding instruction.
The purpose of the Iowa tests is to establish a ranking, while the WASL tests measure how well each student has mastered academic standards, said Nancy Katims, director of assessment, research and evaluation for the Edmonds School District.
The multiple-choice Iowa tests can track progress in learning basic skills, but the WASL tests can assess how well students are able to apply those skills in a variety of question formats, she said.
“On the WASL, the kids are competing against themselves or standards, whereas on the Iowa they are competing against each other,” Katims said.
Reporter Eric Stevick: 425-339-3446 or stevick@ heraldnet.com.
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