Iowa Education Officials are looking at the possibility of ending the long standing Iowa Test of Basic Skills in favor of a test called the Smarter Balanced Assessment. The officials hope that this will shift the focus of standardized test from what they call a trivial pursuit type testing, to an assessment that focuses on critical thinking. But Iowa students have taken a new test this year already. The ITBS test has had a name change, and some changes to the type of test as well.

Its now called the Iowa Assessment, and students say it has a much bigger focus on reading, according to Mark Schneider, Superintendent of Mid-Prairie and Keota. He says it never hurts to try new things in education, but they won’t know how well this new test provides information on their students until they’ve had time to look at the results of the new test.

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