In the state of North Carolina - our home state, we actually do not have many regulations or requirements on our homeschool, but there is one that I am not friends with!
The requirements are:
Parents/guardians residing in North Carolina and
desiring, to home school
their children who are at least age 7 but not yet age 16 must:
Hold at least a high school diploma or its equivalent;
Send a Notice of Intent to Operate a Home School. The notice must include the name and address of the school along with the name of the school's owner and chief administrator;
Elect to operate under either as a religious or as a non-religious school;
Operate the school "on a regular schedule, excluding reasonable holidays and vacations, during at least nine calendar months of the year";
Maintain at the school disease immunization and annual attendance records for each student;
Have a nationally standardized achievement test administered annually to each student. The test must involve the subject areas of English grammar, reading, spelling, and mathematics. Records of the test results must be retained at the home school for at least one year and made available when requested. (my enemy)
Notify when the school is no longer in operation.
Personally I love that this is all the requirements that I have. So you see from reading this that I have to administer an annual test regardless if I want to or not!
Personally I do not agree that this is accurate at measuring my child's or any child's knowledge.
I was reading information on testing and came across an article that was in favor of testing. The reasons given where along the lines of everyone having the same opportunities, Your name and money couldn't buy you out of it, and it helped the schools to measure how good they are doing in education. Really??
But in all seriousness can't you look at a child's growth within a year and assess it from that? I don't need to be bought out of it either way I think if you or your child apply themselves everyone has great opportunities given.
No test is good enough to serve as the primary basis for important educational decisions. Tests that measure as little and as poorly as multiple-choice tests
cannot provide genuine accountability. Pressure to teach to the test
distorts and narrows education.
The U.S. is the only economically advanced nation to rely heavily on
multiple-choice tests. Other nations use performance-based assessment
where students are evaluated on the basis of real work such as essays,
projects and activities. Ironically, because these nations do not focus
on teaching to multiple-choice tests, they even score higher than U.S.
students on those kinds of tests.
Just a thought...
Pray for my kids and myself as this is actually our testing week. We have already had tears from having to guess at some items in math that my daughter didn't know. She said guessing made her feel stupid. Bless that perfection in her...
I just had to check and make sure the test we used this year - PASS from Hewitt Homeschooling - was approved in NC, and it is! Phew! It was a fairly painless option for us, as far as bubble tests go. I think it's a fairly inexpensive option, too. My oldest informed me she is "against testing," LOL! We have done the Woodcock-Johnson test in the past, and I much prefer that, but it's expensive, and I did want them to try a bubble test because they will have to know how to do them at some point. I'll be praying for you and your kiddos. Testing does make for a long week!
ReplyDeleteAhh, testing. We still have another year until we are required to do state testing. I can wait :)
ReplyDeleteThis past year was our first in NC, so it was also our first year of testing. I went with a bare minimum CAT, online version. It went okay, only took one day per kid. No one really cared about the results...In TN there was an option to get out of the state standardized tests in the required grades...but now we must do it...good luck!
ReplyDeleteI agree. We are sort of required to do a standardized test in fourth grade and seventh grade...but the tests don't "count" -- my eldest son really got a confidence boost from doing them, but my second and third sons just could not see the point, and basically didn't answer most of the questions...so, then, really, what is the point? Obviously, their tests are not an accurate reflection of their abilities in those subjects. Perhaps they reflect their maturity levels :) but that is not what was being tested...
ReplyDeleteI really think we can do better than this as a society.