HPS prepares for a new type of testing

In the usual fill-in-the-bubble standardized tests, students don't have to draw a graph tracking global warming, or write an essay about how a hurricane is formed.

When a new kind of standardized test hits the desks of Havre fourth-, eighth- and 10th-graders this spring, nearly half the possible points will come from questions like those, to be answered in the students' own handwriting.

The tests will be the single biggest measuring stick used to determine which schools meet the tough standards of No Child Left Behind, President Bush's sweeping education reform law. The law requires all studen...