Iowa Test of Basic Skills Standardized Testing
The Westfield School utilizes the Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS) to test students at grade levels 3 - 8. The ITBS is a national standardized, norm-reference test which provides an in-depth measure of important educational objectives in the areas of reading, language arts, mathematics, and social studies. It provides reliable and comprehensive information both about the development of students' skills and their critical thinking abilities. The ITBS scores measure the grade equivalency as well as the comparison of the students' performance to the performance of other students nationwide. Please note that the ITBS was not conducted during 2020 due to school closure for the COVID pandemic.
Westfield utilizes the ITBS scores to identify strengths and weaknesses of individual students, make appropriate adjustments to the curriculum in order to maximize student achievement, and provide feedback to students and parents.
The Core Total score is the average of the Reading, Language, and Mathematics test scores over the following areas: Reading (Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension), Language (Spelling, Capitalization, Punctuation, and Usage/Expression), and Mathematics (Concepts/Estimation, Problem Solving/Data Interpretation, and Computation).
The Grade Equivalent score represents the typical performance of students tested in a given month of the school year at a particular grade. For example, Westfield's Class of 2026 (7th graders in the 2020-2021 school year) overall grade equivalent score of 9.4 on the Core (Reading, Language, and Math) reflects the score that students finishing the fourth month of 9th grade would likely score on the Core test. The grade equivalent score helps to estimate the students' developmental status or year-to-year growth. Please see the graphs to the left for more information about Westfield's Grade Equivalent scores.