Each year students in grades 3-12 participate in an assessment of their academic abilities.
The Iowa Test of Basic Skills is a national standardized test that educators use to study the progress students make in key academic areas. Iowa tests help evaluate students, identify areas of strengths, and track academic growth throughout their elementary and secondary years.
In Washington Conference, we recently studied a four-year average of Iowa testing results to gauge how our schools stack up against the North Pacific Union Conference overall scores as well as the national averages.
The academic growth for Adventists schools in Washington Conference is particularly evident the longer a student is in the school system. By 12th grade, our students in western Washington are outpacing their peers academically and score in the top 26 percent of schools nationally.
Growth isn’t readily evident in third grade where students are still seeking to find their academic stride. Improvements begin to appear in fourth grade with reading, computation, and social studies. Fifth grade shows the greatest growth in writing, vocabulary, mathematics, and science.
Sixth grade scores perform well in the areas of writing, mathematics, computation, and student’s core composite skills. Even larger academic increases are visible with seventh grade: reading, written expression, writing, vocabulary, mathematics, computation, social studies, science, and overall composite scores. In eighth and ninth grades, the four-year average of academic skills continues to observe strong and rising scores.
Academic testing scores level out in 10th grade and stay slightly above average overall. Growth continues to be exhibited in 11th grade.
By 12th grade, the English Language Arts (ELA) total for this cohort places them in the top 15% of students nationally. Our students have complete composite scores in the 74th percentile. This places Washington Conference educational system in the top 26 percent of schools nationally.
We are proud of our scholars and how they are growing in their knowledge and wisdom!