The director of the Iowa Department of Education has named the 18 members of a task force that will try to come up with recommendations for a new state assessment test for students. Department spokesperson, Staci Hupp, says Iowa law requires student to be tested. The tests used to be known as the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills. “What we’re doing as a state is looking at the future of state assessments in Iowa,” Hupp says. “We are doing this because schools are in the process of implementing state standards for what students should know and be able to do in kindergarten through 12th grade.”

The task force will examine the options for the assessments. “The main goal with all this is to do everything we can to make sure all students leave high school prepared for college and career training,” Hupp says. The task force will hold the first of several meetings on October 29th. Hupp says the recommendations are expected to be completed by January first of 2015. She says the task force includes a broad range of people with and interest in education.

“They come from teaching backgrounds, they’re school administrators, they represent parents, they represent the business community, they represent our education associations in the state,” according to Hupp. The task force has four criteria they are to follow in developing the recommendations. The assessments must align with the Iowa Core standards; accurately describe student achievement and growth; provide valid, reliable and fair measures of student progress toward college or career readiness and must have been part of a pilot project in schools. Hupp says the task force will explore different ways to get public input on the recommendations as they move forward.

Included among the members of the Assessment Task Force, from western Iowa, is Martha Bruckner, Superintendent of the Council Bluffs Community School District. For more information on state commissions and task forces established as part of 2013 legislation, visit the Iowa Department of Education’s website.

(Radio Iowa)