I don't have any experience with the ITBS, but our ds had had taken the WISC twice and the WJ-III Cognitive Abilities test once (with scores above the 99th ppercentile on each) before he was given the CogAT as a part of gifted program screening, and he only scored in the 75th percentile on the CogAT. I was beyond surprised, so I did a bit of googling and found out that CogAT is a "learned" ability test, and also that it's not unusual for kids who are at the upper ends of the IQ scale and are outside-the-box thinkers to not score as well on it as they do on innate ability tests such as the WISC etc. If it hasn't been long since he took the test, you might try asking your ds what types of questions were on the test and how did he answer them - I don't remember the specific questions now (years later) but do remember ds telling me about some of them after his test and remember that he was all excited about the creative way he'd figured out the answers for things he hadn't learned yet and I kept thinking... um... I'm guessing he's not thinking of the same answer the test-writer was expecting a child to think of!
Re what to do - we simply showed the gifted program screener our ds' outside testing results (WISC). We got some initial push-back and were told they could come up with an alternative ability test. That's the point at which I said "Look, are you telling me that a child who scored ___ on the WISC is not qualified to be in the gifted program?" (note - his scores were much higher than the program cutoff). After I made that remark they were pretty danged quick to say ok, he's in. I don't know if that would have worked with the ITBS or if it would work in your school district, but I would definitely point out the discrepancy and if they pooh-pooh the previous results, put them on the spot (politely of course) and ask them if they are questioning either the vailidity of those results or if they are suggesting a student could have scored that highly and not be gifted. It might help to do a tiny bit of research of your own first re the CogAT and also the ITBS. You should also look up the policy for qualifying for the gifted program in your school district as well as the mission of the program. The CogAT might be simply a screener and there might be other tests they accept and/or other types of qualifiers, such as teacher questionnaire.
And that's all (above) advice if the CogAT was scored *correctly* - if it's been scored for an incorrect (and older) age, I would absolutely ask that it be re-scored. I would also ask in writing rather than verbally.
Best wishes,
polarbear
