Is Standardized Testing Necessary for Homeschooled Students?


Is Standardized Testing Necessary for Homeschooled Students? | #ihsnet

The Purpose of Standardized Tests

The purpose of standardized tests is to assess the academic achievement of students.  I don’t know any homeschooling parents who don’t care whether their kids are learning and growing in knowledge.  The question is, do we need a ‘standardized’ test to assess this learning?

The Problem With Standardized Testing for Homeschooled Students

If you’ve been pondering the question of whether or not to have your homeschooled kids participate in standardized testing, there are several things that you should consider while making your decision.

  1. Standardized tests cannot accurately assess whether kids are really learning all they need to be learning. With the possible exception of math, which is particularly well-suited to standardized assessment, subjects covered in History and Science can vary widely from classroom to classroom or homeschool to homeschool and year by year.
  2. Too much importance is being placed on the results of standardized testing. Public schools use the results of yearly standardized testing to assess the health of each individual school.  These high stakes assessments have loaded the burden of ‘teaching to the tests’ to the public school teacher’s load.  Many homeschooling parents who have gone through the public school system have difficulty stepping back from the school-at-home mentality.
  3. Standardized tests are heavily researched as a form of assessment and are still highly debated by the researchers themselves. Translation:  even the testing experts are unsure of whether the use of standardized tests is a reliable form of assessment.
  4. Jobs and life aren’t ‘standardized’.  A recent study startled the world of academia by showing that high scores on the highly regarded SAT and ACT college entrance exams had little relation to college success. It was, in fact, the high school GPA that was the biggest predictor of success.  Why?  Because a high school GPA is a compilation of hundreds of tests on a variety of subjects.  A high GPA reflects four years of discipline and hard work, or grit, which has been shown to be a better determiner of success (college or otherwise).

How to Assess Homeschool Students

Most homeschool parents are performing informal assessments on their kids every day.  As we sit and engage with our kids daily, one-on-one, discussing what is being learned, correcting errors, making connections between subjects, teaching them how to learn (and how they learn) we are assessing them.  We know what they know and don’t know and what they want to know.

If Your State Requires Testing

States vary widely in their recommendations for standardized testing for homeschoolers.  If your state requires testing, there are things that you can do to make the process as painless as possible.

  1. Demonstrate a relaxed attitude about the testing.  This will reassure your child and places the appropriate value on the testing.
  2. Teach your kids basic test taking skills like how to handle multiple choice questions and other strategies such as making sure your child has had a good night sleep, a hearty breakfast, wears comfortable clothing and uses the restroom before the test.
  3. Teach your kids the reality that test scores do not accurately assess their full academic ability.
  4. Remind your kids that standardized tests don’t measure other important things like intelligence, creativity, and compassion etc.
  5. If your child has a learning disability such as dyslexia, request accommodations such as extended time or to have the test read out loud to the student.

Testing is a part of life to be sure.  Doctors, nurses, lawyers, accountants, electricians, realtors and many other professions require assessments in the form of testing in order to prove ability and knowledge.  At some point in life, most people will need to be able to show what they know through some form of testing.

Testing skills can be taught but teaching a child how to think, how to apply knowledge and to develop critical thinking skills are the best ways to teach kids how to succeed on any kind of test.

Marianne Sunderland

About the author

Marianne Sunderland is a homeschooling mother of eight unique children ages 6 to 25, including adventurous and homeschooled sailors, Zac and Abby Sunderland, known for their world-record setting around the world sailing campaigns. Because 7 of her 8 children are dyslexic, Marianne is a dedicated dyslexia advocate with a passion for educating and encouraging families, not only to understand dyslexia, but also to discover and nurture their children’s God-given gifts and talents, in and outside of the classroom.

Related Posts

Homeschooling in a large family has its challenges. Here are five of the challenges we’ve faced and the approaches we have found that work for us.

Erin Hassett

Sometimes the scariest thing about homeschooling through high school is giving credit to classes. Using 4-H as a high school elective credit can solve that!

Felicia Johnson

I received compensation in exchange for my time and review of Big River Academy homeschool curriculum. All opinions are my own. I’ve always been a hands-on curriculum kind of homeschooling mom. We’ve grown butterflies for science, visited museums for history, and drawn comics as creative writing. I usually expand on book-based curriculum with my own

Rebecca West

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

  1. I absolutely agree with everything you said! In our state, it’s required for homeschoolers to be tested in grades 3, 5, and 8, but we no longer have to turn the scores in to the school district. Only our evaluators see them. I’m blessed enugh to have an evaluator who also dislikes standardized tests and doesn’t pay attention to the scores. (My kids usually score above grade level, but it’s reassuring to know that if they don;t do well one year, she won;t hold it against them.) I also love using the online CAT test. We take it in May and can take as many breaks as we want for however long we want, so you’ll often find my kids outside playing at the water table between segments. It just makes it so much less stressful!

  2. Great tips. We are living somewhere that requires testing for the first time since my oldest has been within the required testing ages so this spring she will take her first standardized test. I’m definitely approaching it in the way you have suggested!

{"email":"Email address invalid","url":"Website address invalid","required":"Required field missing"}

©2024 iHomeschool Network