Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Iowa Acceleration Scale for Subject Acceleration

One other important point that is on page 40 it states...
" above level testing is ONLY required for the assessment of aptitude and is not required in the assessment of ability or achievement."

HELLO! We wish you the best of luck in your efforts! Our recommendation is to provide a full presentation with research, references, highlighted excerpts, as well as specific examples of your child's work. It's a LOT of work...but...

BACKGROUND: We are currently vigorously advocating for our DYS DS9 for acceleration 4th to 6th grade. He has WISC-IV FSIQ 153. "Our" (parents) scored IAS was a 74. We are supposed to get the "teacher" view this Thursday. We have had several meetings, have made some progress, but it has been extremely difficult and stressful. We remain hopeful for the outcome...

QUESTION: Does anyone know where I can find a list of the states, school districts, countries, etc., that use the IOWA scale? In an appendix to "A Nation Deceived" (www.nationdeceived.org), there is a mention of 103 schools that responded to a study, and a table lists Australia and 12 US states specifically. In the preface to the IAS-3 Manual, there is the following statement:

"...since 1998, it has been used for successful acceleration decisions with hundreds of students in school districts throughout the United States, as well as in other countries."

However, a list or specific number of states, schools, school districts, etc., was not listed anywhere that I can find in the manual or through online research.

Any ideas?

Thanks, and again, best of luck to you or anyone else currently advocating for their children!

Kevin

I agree Dottie, but if that is their only reason for her NOT progressing further, it may help somewhat. We too, did what the pp mentioned with mega research, portfolio, full presentation etc. definitely helped. Showing we weren't clueless as to what we mentioned helped. In other words, pointing out that you understand the IAS so they can't pull one over on you is important. The IAS is not an end all for anyone, it's a scale that makes a suggestion, not an end result. That's the important think to remember.

Also, the reason we had to point it out was because our school had never done it before and were trying to do unneccessary things that were way out there.

Hi Kevin - welcome!
I have an idea - in the past the lead researcher for IAS has been very kind and helpful - I would email:

I'm guessing that your school would like to be able to phone some neighboring schools to get advice on how the darn scale is supposed to work. But what ever your purpose is, please share it with Dr. Asouline. Even if she can't give you a list, she may be able to help in some other way, such as offering to contact the school, or contacting a local school and asking them to contact your school. Who knows?

Good luck and Welcome!
Grinity

Thanks Grinity! Great idea. I will email her right now...

They are definitely missusing the IAS. On another document from the district, there is a direct contradiction... says >10 points for subject acceleration, where the other one says <10 points. I'm pretty sure that in writing the district document, someone figured the <10 points had to be a mistake, since it doesn't make sense to use it the way they are using it:
they list the IAS as a "criteria", requiring <10 points..... well, that would be every kid who requested subject acceleration.... correct?
They must have decided to just change it to >10 points (instead of consulting the IAS)... which also makes no sense, since that is the criteria for whole level advancement.

I've emailed the director, just to let her know of the mistake, because such an error on a legal document disturbs me. Since the document contradicts itself, there is no current official policy, so I feel I just took 2 steps back.

I agree, you are better off without clear cut policies in place.. it gives you more freedom. I agree, if you know as much as you can and remain polite, but not a push-over, you can go far (but only as far as THEY are willing to let you. Unfortunately, sometimes that is no where and you need to weigh your options all around, even if that means possibly a different school.)

Just a little update: I was able to get her a self paced acceleration... without it being an "official" acceleration into a different classroom. So instead of sending her to 3rd grade math, which I was reluctant to do anyway, they are excusing her from her 2nd grade curriculum and letting her do Aleks on her own.

She's loved it. Only problem is that she's blown through 3rd grade math on Aleks in 3 weeks. She tested out of most of it initially, so I'm hoping 4th grade will be at a slower pace.