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North Carolina’s home education law regarding achievement testing for home schoolers is really quite simple when you break it down into understandable parts. For example, consider these common questions and their answers . . .
Q. What do I do with the results? A. “Maintain records. ..for one year after the testing. . .available for annual inspection by a duly authorized representative of the State of North Carolina.” Q. Can I administer the achievement tests myself? A. Yes! Simply stated, in the matter of the achievement test, you have perfect liberty both to choose the kind of test your child takes and to determine the time, place and setting in which the test is given. You may also choose who gives the achievement test to your child. And while DNPE recommends that a 3rd party administer the test, NC law makes no such requirement. (If you live in another state besides North Carolina, and are not sure what your homeschool laws require, click here to find out about your government agencies and laws) It is also helpful to remember that (again according to our state law) each home school is legally considered a non-public or private school. As such, you, the parent-teacher-administrator of your own private school, have all the privileges of controlling every aspect of your child’s education. Along with that privilege, however, comes responsibility -- the complete responsibility to develop and teach the curriculum, to organize day-to-day activities, to keep important records of grades, etc., as well as to obtain and annually administer a nationally standardized achievement test. Since, therefore, you are responsible for such an important task, you may be wondering, “Where do I find these nationally standardized achievement tests?” and “How do I administer them?” One common misconception is that the so-called “end of grade” tests given by the public schools are acceptable for home schools. It is true that G.S. 115C-559 of NC law allows for non-public schools to participate in public school testing programs. However, “end of grade” tests given by NC public schools do not satisfy NC law for home schools, because those tests are not nationally standardized; nor do they measure achievement in all the specific areas required for home schools. •Private schools: If you have contact with one of these traditional classroom schools you may be able to test when they do. Remember, by law, they only have to test grades 3, 6 & 9, while home schools must test every student in every grade every year. •Packaged curriculums: If your curriculum is from a correspondence school or other educational service, you may already have the achievement test provided for you. Check with your supplier for such availability. •Private testing services: By far the greatest number of options are available from independent individuals or companies in the business of providing tests and accompanying services. These private testing services began to appear several years ago when the achievement test publishers stopped selling tests directly to home schooling parents. In the best spirit of free enterprise, many people already involved in home education saw the testing needs home schoolers had and took steps to meet those needs. They set up private, for-profit businesses, contracting with and meeting the often stringent requirements of the test publishers, and subsequently made the tests available to home schooling families and support groups for a small fee. It is from these entrepreneurs that you will usually find the widest range of test types and the best services to meet your needs. And here, again by law, you are free to choose the service that best suits your student’s and school’s situation. If you or your child needs a quiet, one-on-one, in-home testing environment then you can find companies that (with varying requirements & prices) will provide it. If, on the other hand, a group situation will suffice, that, too, is readily available, usually sponsored by or within your support group. 
Q. Which of the nationally standardized tests should you use? A. NC law makes no requirement and DNPE makes no recommendations. Therefore, you may use one of the big four (ITBS, CAT, Metropolitan, Stanford) or any of a number of lesser-known tests. Educational researchers generally agree that the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills and the Stanford Ach. Test are both a little more comprehensive because they test “higher order thinking skills” which show how well children reason as well as how they perform repetitive tasks or dexterity skills. But actually, any of the nationally standardized tests (those that have been developed, tested, scored and normed for a group large enough to represent the entire U.S.) will do just fine. And while not necessary, it is generally better for your students and for tracking their year-by-year development and progress (which is, after all, the main purpose of the tests) to stick with the same test from year to year. You may use the traditional, timed, fill-in-the-bubble, kind of test (like the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills or the California Ach. Tests) in which you are allowed by law to test your own children in your own home. Or you may prefer a non-timed version of these traditional tests (like the PASS test from Hewitt Research). There is even a short-but-thorough, non-timed, mostly verbal test (called the Woodcock-Johnson) which is only given by a trained administrator who would come to your home or other comfortable location. “So, what’s the next step?” you may ask. With an understanding of North Carolina law and your responsibility to it, you are now ready to make some choices. The key to all of this is to choose the test and testing situation that is best for you and your student(s). Click here to learn all about the tests offered by Piedmont Education Services. Please call us at 336-924-2494 , in Winston Salem, or email us at service@pesdirect.com if you have any other questions. We look forward to serving you. |
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Q. How do I order the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills? Q. What is the difference between an achievement test and an ability test? RAW:The Raw score is the number of questions a student gets right. On Machine Scoring you will also get information about the total number of questions, and how many were attempted by the student. SS: Developmental Standard Score: This number describes a student's location on an achievement continuum. The scale corresponds to typical performances of grade groups on each test at certain times of the year. They have no built-in meaning. To interpret the SS, the values associated with typical performance in each grade must be used as reference points. These numbers are used to compute other statistics. GE: Grade Equivalent is a number that gives the student's location on an achievement continuum and describes performance in terms of grade level and month. For example, if a fourth grader scores 5.6 on a test, his/her score is like the one a student at the end of the 6th month of 5th grade would likely score. It means the student scored as well as the average student in the sixth month of the fifth grade would have scored. These scores are particularly useful for measuring individual growth from one year to the next. It measures a student's developmental level, and should not be used for grade placement. A high GE or low GE is mainly a sign of exceptional or low performance. GE scores are best suited to estimate a students developmental status or year-to-year growth. NS: National Stanine: This statistic is a coarse grouping of percentile ranks or normalized standard scores that range from 1 to 9 and have an average value of 5. They are less precise measures of student achievement than percentile ranks but are convenient to use to identify areas of strength and weakness. They do not describe a student's developmental level or measure growth. NPR: National Percentile Rank: These percentiles show a student's standing within the group of student's in the same grade who were tested at the same time of year during the national standardization. These are especially useful for profile analysis and determining the areas of relative strength and weakness for an individual student. A percentile rank of 72 means the student scored better than 72 percent of the other children in the same grade in the norming sample. Percentile ranks range from 1 to 99 and are less useful than grade equivalents for estimating or monitoring growth. A students percentile rank is a score that shows the percent of student's in a particular group that got lower raw scores on a test than the student did. |