My son's school uses the ITBS to qualify students for acceleration. My son took the 3rd grade ITBS and the results letter we received simply stated "Did Not Pass". Is there any way I can make the district give me his actual scores?

If this is a US public school, you may wish to read up on FERPA, including your school's annual notice to parents.

This recent thread or this post from a recent thread may provide the information you need.

The Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS) is a grade-level test, not an above-grade-level test, therefore may not be the best means of determining readiness for acceleration. This Hoagies' webpage discusses What Do The Tests Tell Us?

Does your school website provide transparency regarding the qualification criteria which your school applies to the ITBS results to determine eligibility for accelerated learning? For example, does the school use a set cut score? ... a percentile, relative to other children in the grade?

The website says "For full-grade promotion an evaluation of "proficient" must be assessed in the areas of English Language Arts, Math, Science and Social Studies."

Another place it says "Proficiency based promotion to the next grade level or for credit shall be demonstrated by a score of 90% or comparable performance on an assessment."

I'm not clear on what this means in relation to the ITBS...90th percentile?

This does not sound like acceleration (also known as grade-skipping or full-grade-acceleration).

"Full-grade promotion" typically means passing to the next grade; not retained. ("Retained" typically means failed; student will repeat the same grade.)

"Proficient" typically means met standards; pass.

There is typically a category above "Proficient", which is called "Advanced."

There is a difference between percent and percentile.
- Percent is the proportion of a student's answers correct. For example, 9 out of 10 correct.
- Percentile is the student's score relative to others being compared. For example, score was higher than 90% of students compared.

Is your son a third grader or was it an above level test for him? Ie. Was he supposed to test f proficient in the end of third grade test in order to go straight from second to fourth?

My son just completed second grade, so if he scored "proficient" on the third grade test he would have gone straight to fourth.
The school calls it "proficiency based promotion" instead of acceleration.

I did not make my question clear. I understand the difference between percent and percentile, but does the ITBS usually report scores in percent or percentile? I've never seen any results, and I'm not sure if they mean 90% is proficient or 90th percentile is proficient.

ITBS generally reports percentile scores, but it is also possible to calculate percent accuracy. That approach to interpretation should be deemphasized, though, because the test is a norm-referenced test, which means that, from version to version, (or level to level) there may be differences in the percentile that corresponds to a given percent accuracy.

From what I have read from the links provided above, (this is a US public school), they are required to disclose "education records". Is there any way that these test results would not be considered "education records"? I'm trying to anticipate any objections. Are there any other arguments they could make to avoid disclosing the results?

Look at the FERPA definition of "education records" (linked upthread). Also locate your school's annual notice to parents. If the school raises any objections to providing you with your child's scores, your best answers may be found in those two resources (FERPA definitions and annual notice to parents).

Current definition as of June 12, 2017:
Education records. (a) The term means those records that are:

(1) Directly related to a student; and

(2) Maintained by an educational agency or institution or by a party acting for the agency or institution.

(b) The term does not include:

(1) Records that are kept in the sole possession of the maker, are used only as a personal memory aid, and are not accessible or revealed to any other person except a temporary substitute for the maker of the record.

(2) Records of the law enforcement unit of an educational agency or institution, subject to the provisions of §99.8.

(3)(i) Records relating to an individual who is employed by an educational agency or institution, that:

(A) Are made and maintained in the normal course of business;

(B) Relate exclusively to the individual in that individual's capacity as an employee; and

(C) Are not available for use for any other purpose.

(ii) Records relating to an individual in attendance at the agency or institution who is employed as a result of his or her status as a student are education records and not excepted under paragraph (b)(3)(i) of this definition.

(4) Records on a student who is 18 years of age or older, or is attending an institution of postsecondary education, that are:

(i) Made or maintained by a physician, psychiatrist, psychologist, or other recognized professional or paraprofessional acting in his or her professional capacity or assisting in a paraprofessional capacity;

(ii) Made, maintained, or used only in connection with treatment of the student; and

(iii) Disclosed only to individuals providing the treatment. For the purpose of this definition, “treatment” does not include remedial educational activities or activities that are part of the program of instruction at the agency or institution; and

(5) Records created or received by an educational agency or institution after an individual is no longer a student in attendance and that are not directly related to the individual's attendance as a student.

(6) Grades on peer-graded papers before they are collected and recorded by a teacher.

(Authority: 20 U.S.C. 1232g(a)(4))

Thanks for clarifying. I can follow this better now. Looks like puffin was ahead of the curve in understanding the thread, way to go puffin!

These are my current thoughts, based on the Iowa Acceleration Scale (IAS)...
- The IAS mentions potential use of the ITBS (at least 2 grade levels above child's current placement) as an assessment of aptitude.
- The IAS scoring on aptitude assessments consists of 3 bands: at or below 49th percentile, 50th-75th percentile, above 75th percentile.
- This is just one of MANY factors considered and data points collected in discussing the likelihood of a successful full-grade acceleration.
- The IAS does not mention using the ITBS as your school appears to be doing.

While the IAS is now in its 3rd edition, cost-conscious individuals can often purchase used, 2nd edition copies at greatly reduced prices online.

Some thoughts to consider, in addition to requesting your child's scores:
1) Share information about the IAS and the Acceleration Institute with your child's school. The objective would be to have them adopt this comprehensive approach to decision-making regarding full-grade acceleration.
2) Invite your child's teachers, gifted coordinator, etc, to join the free Davidson Educator's Guild.
3) When advocating, remember to remain focused on your child's needs: Kids need an appropriate academic challenge and academic/intellectual peers. (You may wish to print, highlight, and share with your school the articles by experts mentioned in the previous two linked posts: what a child doesn't learn, Gifted children: Youth mental health update.)

It might actually not be difficult to get the score report - this is what you would do in my school district, not sure if it's the same where you're at, but generally, there's a person/contact to ask for this info, and the school district (here), will give you a copy of or let you look at or copy whatever records you're legally entitled to. When I needed to ask for a copy of test results for gifted program that one of my children had taken through the district, I first asked the person who'd administered the test, and they referred me to the central records location where students' files are kept - all it took was a call/email to that location and I was able to get a copy of the record. It *might* be more difficult where you are, but it also might be relatively easy. You have a right (via FERPA) to be provided with the information if you request it, so I'd either start by asking the person who administered the test at school who to contact, or I'd dig around on your school district's website to see if there's a contact # listed for records, or I'd call your central administration general info # and ask who to contact.

Best wishes,

polarbear

I hope this is the case. I am anticipating some resistance because on the website it says "Proficiency Based Testing results will only be reported as “Pass” or “Not Pass”.

I have a meeting with the district gifted programming administrator soon. I am bringing:

1. printouts of the articles mentioned by indigo
2. District FERPA notification to parents
3. FERPA definitions
4. my son's IQ test results & other test results
5. the Iowa Acceleration Scale Manual
6. the district Gifted Policy
7. the state gifted Policy
8. A Nation Deceived

This is the first official meeting I have had with anyone at the district or the school, and I'm not sure what to expect. My primary goal is to get a copy of his test results and to open discussion about the acceleration policy and what options my son has. I want to have more specific goals here, but I'm unsure where to focus my efforts without having seen his test results.

Any advice, besides "check your emotions"? I have read through "From Emotions to Advocacy".

Polarbear gave you great advice to first call your school, and what to say; the process may be easy. If you have not done this yet, do this NOW. As a follow-up or next step, you may wish to e-mail your school.

IMO, you want the scores (or at least to have requested the scores and received a reply which indicates the score retrieval is in the works) BEFORE a meeting.

A meeting is probably NOT the best format to request the scores, if other options exist.

Other advice:
- Remember that school districts can vary considerably. Some are more transparent, compliant with the law, empowering toward students and families, and easy to work with. Others are more insular, less compliant with the law, and more inclined to dis-empower students and parents (especially gifted children and their parents when schools may be incubators of policies for equal outcomes)... although they may be very pleasant to your face, they may deflect, veer off-track, fail to follow-through, not return phone calls or e-mails, miss deadlines, provide only non-responsive replies (replies which do not provide the requested information), engage in divide-and-conquer techniques (attempt to pit family members against each other by falsely reporting or taking out of context or perspective that one did not have the same goal as another... for example, if 5 solutions are under consideration and ranked, child and parents may all agree on the top two but may have rated the top two differently... while this is substantial agreement, a district may saw away at this for years as a disagreement among family members), etc, and generally not hold themselves accountable.
- I supplied you with source documents for information which you requested, so that you understand that you are entitled to the information which you are seeking. This is to boost your confidence: Although inexperienced, you do need not be naive or overly dependent on what the school says, with no other source of information to potentially counter with, if needed. However this is not meant to suggest that you ought to quickly escalate matters. Once escalated, it is difficult if not impossible to go back to making simple requests.
- Document, document, document. You may need or benefit from having accurate records, for any future educational advocacy.
- Arrange everything into an advocacy ring-binder for easy ongoing reference.
- Highlight the important parts in the printed articles. This would generally be the points mentioned/quoted/discussed in the posts on this forum. If you don't highlight these points, they may be missed when the article is read/skimmed.
- Did you read the links at this post, including crowd-sourced meeting prep?

One effective approach or strategy may be to ask, "Can you help me understand...?", as this is generally seen as non-confrontational. For example, depending upon the conversation occurring...
- "Can you help me understand where the actual scores exist?"
- "Can you help me understand whether the testing company has the scores?"
- "Can you help me understand how the district believes it is compliant in withholding the scores when the FERPA definition of "educational records" says...."
- etc...

This is all great stuff. I especially like the "Can you help me understand..."

I'm still figuring all this out, but it seems that in my district the gifted coordinator has to approve the grade skip before the school will get involved. He provides a recommendation to the school and they decide from there.

Also it's very difficult to get a meeting with the school principal or teachers during the summer break.

Update: I was able to get a copy of his test results, and the gifted coordinator agreed to make use of the IAS as a pilot for my son!

This means that he will take the 4th grade ITBS for the "Aptitude", he already has a CoGAT for the "Ability", but the coordinator wanted to use his 3rd grade ITBS results for the "Achievement" part which is supposed to be a grade-level test (he just finished 2nd grade). This seems unfair to me but I don't really want to make him take yet another test just to get this data point. Has anyone used AIMSweb plus scores for the "Achievement" part of the IAS? Any other ideas?

This is excellent news. Thanks for sharing. This may help the school have confidence in supporting your son's acceleration and may also help future children/families facing this decision.

While this does not seem ideal, it could work IF a notation is placed on the IAS forms as to the score being provided from the 3rd grade test for the student just having completed 2nd grade... due to this score being readily available... and to avoid test fatigue.

Otherwise, the 3rd grade ITBS would seem to work against him.

Hopefully the school realizes that while taking a one-year-ahead test might reveal small gaps in student knowledge, gifted kiddos typically learn at a faster pace... with exposure to the material would quickly close those gaps in knowledge.

I just did the IAS and school choose to use MAP instead of AIMSWEB+.