Elementary and middle school students at Hillsdale Academy ranked in the 99th percentile in a national test for the 14th consecutive year.

The Iowa Assessments Exam, formerly called the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, or ITBC, is administered in both public schools and private schools. Since first administering the exam in 1994, the Academy has ranked in the 90th percentile or above every year. 

“You get this score when you take all grades K-8 combined as a building and compare it to the national norm of other K-8 buildings,” Headmaster Mike Roberts said.

Roberts said private independent schools are not required to take standardized tests by law.

“When the state of Michigan is doing testing for their public school students, we can opt-in or opt-out of that,” he said. “The nice thing about that is we can control the amount of classroom time versus the testing time we have.”

Nevertheless, Roberts said the Academy uses the test to prepare students for college entrance exams like the SAT and ACT. The test also provides the school with a way to judge how students are doing overall.

 

“We also like to have some data every year to get an assessment of how our students are doing, how we are doing as a classroom, and how we are doing as a school. It is just one of the pieces of evidence to hold our school accountable,” he said.

Julie Budd, who has taught 8th grade math, history, literature, and language arts at the Academy for 23 years, said the test has remained basically unchanged for as long as she has been there.

“It is that very reason that we like it as a measurement tool: it tests basic skills, and it has been consistent over the years,” Budd said.

Budd said that while many schools spend a lot of time changing their curriculum to prepare for testing, the Academy never has.

“The strength of our classical curriculum is that it concentrates on teaching students to read well, write clearly, and think deeply,” she said. “Our core classes focus on literature, grammar, composition, history, science, and math, which prepare them well naturally for a test that measures what they know in each of these areas.”

Budd said her students have always done well on this test.

“Our curriculum has always comprised the traditional subjects that provide children with a well-rounded education, so, unsurprisingly, students have and continue to perform well on the Iowa standardized test,” Budd said. 

Roberts said the COVID-19 shutdowns in the spring of 2020 were difficult, but he feels the students are back to their previous level of work.

“We were able to build some skill and knowledge with the partnership with our parents,” he said. “While it wasn’t that ideal, we were able to salvage something, even in that horrible spring.”

Budd agreed that Academy students were fortunate to have only missed a few months of school, but she noted that the COVID-19 lockdowns still have an effect on students transferring from other schools.

“We have noted a decline in preparedness and grade readiness from some new students enrolling from schools who did remote learning for a longer time,” Budd said.

Budd and Roberts said these tests are not the only way of seeing how the school is doing.

“While we are very proud of these test scores, and we take these into consideration, this is by far not the only measuring stick of a successful school,” Roberts said.