Berry Interesting

Last night the superintendent of our school district hosted a meeting aimed at assessing the needs of homeschoolers in the community. He made it very clear that homeschoolers are welcome to use school services and participate in extra-curricular activities. What the??????

Two years ago, when I pulled Charlie out of school, I was aware that there was a provision in the Idaho Code of All Things Educational that homeschooled children should be able to participate in standardized testing with their public school peers. Fair 'nuff. Testing time came and I called the school and said, "Whutsup? I wanna test my boy." And they were all, "Uh-uh. You cut your ties with us forever. You can test him your own damn self." And I was all, "I know my rights! This here code says you have to test my child!" And they were all, "Oh no we don't. It is left to the discretion of the district if we want to test and no we do not want to test so goodbye."

Click.

Cut forward two years. The new superintendent is holding a meeting welcoming homeschoolers. He says the district will be open to testing homeschoolers AND we can join the band, go to art classes, take calculus, etcetera. This is good news to me. For one thing, I don't use grades. Testing will be an integral part of making sure my kids are performing at and above grade level.

Don't use grades? you say. No, I don't. We're pretty loosy-goosey. I don't know how I would apply numbers to their work when I make them redo everything until it's right. I test, I assess, I drill, I quiz verbally...I do lots of things. I just don't grade with numbers. But some homeschoolers do. And they brag about their '4.0' grade average. I don't get it. But...to each his own.

Back to the post. Testing is important. Standardized test scores will play a large role in our kids' transcripts when it's college time, especially since we won't have grades to speak of. On the other hand, don't get me started on the over-testing being done in the public schools. Good golly. Don't get me started. So...here's how I handle testing.

For reading level I pull three different online assessments and test the kids myself. All three were found at this website. I just keep a notebook listing the dates the tests were given and how they did.

Up to now we've never participated in standardized testing. But last spring I signed up with the Idaho Coalition of Home Educators so that Charlie will be able to take the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. And it sounds like he will also be taking the Idaho Standards Achievement Test at the local school this year. Nice.

Testing is a good thing.

PS - I'm trying of getting out of the habit of bragging about test scores. This is so my kids won't tell everyone, "I'm in the X grade but I'm really a genius and my mama told me so because I read at X level."