I’ve been trying to figure out the rules regarding homeschool assessments for the three years that we’ve been homeschooling. Last year, I thought I had it figured out when I wrote Assessments and the Homeschooled Student. And I did, but I left a couple of items unclear.
Although I stated:
However, on alternate years, homeschooled students in Grades 4-8 can submit a narrative instead of an assessment test. Thus, a homeschooled student can postpone taking a standardized test until 5th Grade.
It would have been more clear to say, as described in a post on the Families Unschooling In NY Yahoo group forum:
1.) Testing is required every other year in grades 5-8 (so you can choose
either grades 5 and 7 OR grades 4, 6 andand every year from 9th grade
until your child “ages out.”
Here is the rest of that entry as I think she does an excellent job of elucidating a very murky topic:
2.) These testing requirements were established in 1988, when the NYS
Regulations on Home Instruction went into effect. There has been no change.
(What sometimes confuses people is that they think that since kids in public
school now have to be tested starting in 3rd grade, because of the federal
No Child Left Behind Act, our kids do, too – this is not true, because NCLB
doesn’t apply to homeschoolers. Also, people tend to think that the “every
other year” thing means that testing has to start in 4th grade, but it’s
really 5th.)
3.) There are more tests to choose from than the two you mentioned.
Acceptable tests are listed both in the Regulations and in a list of
“Additional Approved Tests” (that is, tests that the NYSED approved after
the Regs went into effect). Also, recently the NYSED confirmed to my group,
PAHSI (Partnership for Accurate Homeschooling Information) that the NYSED no
longer reviews tests to consider approving them, but leaves that up to the
local authorities, so there might be other tests to choose from depending on
where you live.
For example, the NYC Central Office of Homeschooling will now accept scores
from the (college-admissions) SAT (I say “college-admissions” because
there’s another SAT, too – the Stanford Achievement Test), the PSAT and the
ACT. (But there are nuances on the scoring, so if anyone wants to use one of
these, please say so and I’ll post details.)
4.) The tests that seem to be the most popular among parents (the PASS and
the short version of the CAT) only cover Math, Reading and Language, so you
don’t have to worry about “content” in areas like science and history.
5.) If your child doesn’t meet the cutoff score, the 33rd percentile (that
is, better than the bottom third of kids in his/her grade nationwide,
however schooled), you can use what many of us call the “growth option”
instead (that is, show “one academic year of growth” since a test taken the
previous year or earlier in the same year) – as long as you have an earlier
score to compare the most recent one to. (The “growth option” is why some of
us choose to test in 4th grade even though we don’t have to – to get a
baseline score to keep in our back pockets in case we need it later.)
6.) What matters is the composite score (the average of the scores on the
various sections), so a high score on one section (for example, Reading) can
buoy a low score/s on the other section/s. (For example, this year my son
took the PASS and scored at the 97th percentile in Reading, the 42nd in
Language and the 12th in Math – making him theoretically a perfectly and
precisely “average child” with a composite score at the 50th percentile -
well above the 33rd percentile cutoff.)
7.) The PASS test is untimed. (On the other hand, one version of the CAT is
shorter than the PASS – you get to choose whether untimed or short is likely
to work better for your child.)
8.) Most unschooled kids do fine without any test prep. If you think your
kid might not, you can always test early in the year in order to have time
to think about your options after you get the score.
9.) You can re-test as many times as the testing companies allow you to
order the test/s (sometimes you have to wait a certain number of months
before reordering the same test from the same company).
10.) The rest of the paperwork is also not as daunting as you might think.
Not sure I covered everything I meant to. Ask for more details if you want,
or check the archives. You still have years before you have to worry about
it – wait, I mean before you DON’T have to worry about it! Testing in the
end is really no big deal for most families. (For those rare families in
which it is, rethinking the grade level you put on the IHIP and seeking
testing accommodations for professionally-identified “special needs” may be
options.)
Got it? It really isn’t that hard to figure out, but the bottom line is that you have many options for homeschool assessments and the challenge is to discover which works best for you and your child.
This year, my son took the CAT because it’s short (less than two hours) and it was so easy that he was done with the whole thing in about half of the time allotted. Since he is in 4th Grade, we could’ve waited another year to start the testing sequence, but I was curious. Other than satisfying my curiosity, the test isn’t doing much for us. I found that administering free, downloadable New York State tests was much more helpful for determining how he is doing in various content areas. By the way, If you want a good laugh, you should take a look at the 4th Grade Science Test. I think any Kindergartner who watches the Magic School Bus can pass that test with flying colors.
So, this is what is working for us right now, we’ll worry about next year when we get there.
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