If the bill makes it out of committee, which is doubtful, at some point along the way I would expect a ruling that the bill violates the 4th amendment.

Whether the premise is false or not depends on the career. For most careers, where you go to college doesn't matter -it's the degree that counts. In other fields, where you go to school matters a great deal.

How the heck will the "parent certification" work? Based on the recent threads discussing CA, CA has now moved to the #1 spot previously held by NY on my personal list of "the state I would not want to homeschool in." Hopefully, this bill, like other recent bills that infringed on homeschoolers' rights, will die a quick death.

My son's school doesn't have a core curriculum, which is one of the reasons he chose the school. I know that he will not be taking a foreign language, and I will be shocked if he elects to take a science class.

I have some experience with how some admissions offices evaluate an applicant based on SAT/ACT scores from going through the recruiting process with my son. It seemed that with the SAT (this was the old test), the Reading and Math sections were looked at separately and the writing section was ignored. My son was told that admissions was looking for above 700 in each subsection, and these scores were more important than the composite. I have a friend whose son is going through the process this year, so this info is second-hand. She said that the coaches are recommending that their recruits take the ACT. The coaches have told her that based on the scores that they are seeing for the new SAT, that the belief that the new SAT is easier is wrong. They believe that the new SAT is more difficult. However, until the admissions offices get new official concordance tables from the College Board, they will contiune to concord using the current tables. Recruits that were not able to get past admissions with the new SAT scores, were able to meet the thresholds with the ACT. I don't understand how the College Board blundered the concordance tables so badly. I feel bad for the 2018 graduates. I hope this gets figured out by next year, but to be on the safe side, I have signed my D up to take the ACT next month.

. Yes, the Larson book will definitely prepare a student for calculus in college.

I have used the Larson textbook, Calculus for AP with great success. Larson has free online resources to support their various textbooks. Calc Chat provides solutions to the odd-numbered textbook problems. Calc View provides video instruction for the main topics in each chapter. What I like about this particular textbook is that at the end of each section are three questions worded similarly to questions found on the AP exam. In addition after each chapter review section, there is a another section of multiple choice and free response questions typical to those found on the AP exam.

Imo, those topics need to be included in a Calc 2 course

I do think it does get easier down the road, not because the course work gets easier, but because the kids have honed their study skills. Some colleges don't even give letter grades for the first semester of freshman year because they want to give the students an opportunity to adjust to the demands of college classes. Good luck to your daughter.

ACT is the one paying the proctors and room supervisors. At the end of the day, it is the ACT's responsibility to ensure a secure testing environment.

In my opinion, the ACT is to blame if students are cheating off of each other during the test. The ACT is responsible for maintaining the integrity of the testing environment since they are the ones responsible for hiring the proctors and room supervisors. Students cheating off of each other should never happen. That's what the proctors are there for. It sounds like for many of these kids accused of cheating, it has not been possible to "clear their names" even when they do retake the test. These kids are declared guilty with no ability to prove their innocence. Some of the parents have hired attorneys to fight the ACT, but the ACT has legally protected itself by requiring all of our kids to sign a document before they take the exam.

She has one specifically for the English on the ACT and another one for the writing section of the SAT. However, the writing section on the "new and improved" SAT is very similar to the grammar section on the ACT. One of her books will now work well for both tests.

Yes.

I agree. The ACT needs to have confidence that the proctors are doing their jobs. A student should not have to worry about being accused of cheating simply because his score increased. This practice of flagging "cheaters" based solely on score discrepancies is ridiculous.

Many of the students I tutor have not been taught the rules of grammar and usually get a baseline score around 20 in the English. After I work through Erica Metzler's grammar book with them, their scores typically jump up to high 20's/30's. The English section of the ACT is very coachable. The ACT folks have to know this, yet they are refusing to reinstate scores even when students can document that they received tutoring.

The College Board and ACT need to stop recycling tests! Surely with the amount of money they are taking in, they can afford to pay a staff to develop an original test for each administration. Some areas of the country cancelled the March 10th SAT. Those kids will be taking it in a couple of weeks. My bet is that the test will be the March 10th test even though the questions have been discussed on Reddit. Heck, one kid even posted his entire answer sheet for the math section.

Not everyone is aware that there are practice tests available and some of these parents sign their kids up to take the test so they can see what it is like. In my experience, highly discrepant scores are the result of test prep. The ACT and SAT have paid proctors in each exam room to prevent possible cheating. If the ACT can't trust its proctors, the organization either needs to provide more training or pay a higher wage to get a more qualified person to oversee its test.

I live in the Midwest. My state recently replaced their state tests with either the ACT or SAT. The school district gets to decide which test their juniors take. The state pays for the exam. In my area there seems to be a 50/50 split on which test is given.

No the ACT flagged his score because it dropped so much from his prior test. These situations are not the result of a proctor reporting an issue of potential cheating during the test. These kids are flagged simply because of discrepancies in their ACT score from one testing to the next.

If my boys would have been in public school and been required to take the ACT at school even though they had already achieved a high ACT score they were satisfied with, I could see them not even reading the test and just making pretty pictures with the bubble sheet.

According to some of the posts in that thread, some of the kids did retake the test again, but the ACT questioned that score as well. Also, it appears that the ACT is not notifying these kids until senior year, even if they took the test in an earlier grade. Yes, life isn't fair, but it is not always easy to find time in senior year to take the test again and move on. Many parents in that thread report providing documentation that their child was tutored along with documentation from the proctor of the exam that the procedures were followed at the testing site, yet this still wasn't enough for the ACT folks. Life isn't fair, but kids should be afforded the right to be assumed innocent until proven guilty. The ACT has taken this basic right away from these kids as they consider them guilty with no way to prove their innocence. Bottom line: I am advising the kids that I tutor not to take the ACT cold, and if they are not happy with their score to pay the extra testing fees to ACT and take the test again if their test prep is not complete. That way, they will show incremental progress and won't raise any flags of cheating. On the flip side, if a student the student has a very high score (34 or more) I am advising them not to take the test again unless merit money is on the line because if they perform worse the next time, they might be accused of cheating the time they achieved the 34.

I tutor students in both SAT and ACT prep. By the time the students come to me for tutoring, some of them have taken the ACT "cold" just to get a baseline score. There is a possibility that if you took the test cold and then improve your scores after preparing for the exam, the ACT will accuse you of cheating. There is more than one thread on College Confidential about this situation. Here is one that is 8 pages long. https://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-act-tests-test-preparation/1987200-act-testing-wrongly-accusing-cheating-2017-p1.html I didn't read the entire thread, but there was also at least one situation where a student received a high score on his first sitting of the ACT, and he was required by his school to take the ACT again as part of the state yearly testing requirement. Since he already had a score he was happy with, he put no effort into the one he had to take in school. The ACT came back and accused him of cheating on the first test. To make the situation even worse, it appears that the ACT does not notify the students about the score cancellation until their senior year. Many of these kids have already been accepted to colleges based on the test score that the ACT deems invalid due to cheating.

PAH is Pennsylvania Homeschoolers. They offer a variety of AP classes.

While, I wouldn't shoot a government official who wanted to enter my home, I would not let him enter without a search warrant. If this bill were to pass, there is no guarantee that the government inspector would just be looking for children locked in the basement and would leave the legitimate homeschoolers alone. What if the inspector is fundamentally against homeschooling and feels it is her duty to try to get the kids back into public school "where they belong so they can socialize and learn with other kids." I didn't see any objective standards written in the proposed bill that Quill posted, so nothing would stop a government inspector on a power-trip from reporting a legitimate homeschooling family and making their lives a living hell. I agree with other posters who have said this law violates the 4th amendment. We had a similar bill proposed in our state after a child who wasn't attending a brick and mortar school was murdered. That bill died a quick death. I expect this bill to as well. (Ironically, the bill that was proposed in my state was targeted solely at homeschoolers, while the child whose name was on the bill was actually considered a public school student by the state, and the bill didn't address that segment of the population at all. Many government officials can't even comprehend the legal distinction of a homeschooler. I would be terrified of the thought of these "experts" having the right to come into my home and evaluate my teaching methods. No way.

Wow, your state already has regulations that seem more strict than the vast majority of states, definitely more strict than my state. Evaluations twice per year? That must be expensive.