treestarfae Posted March 10, 2010 Share Posted March 10, 2010 Just wondering if anyone does this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 10, 2010 Share Posted March 10, 2010 No, no, a thousand times no! One of the few things that make me go all political is the way that public schools are forced to teach to the high-stakes tests, and the way in which the tests in turn determine and drastically limit curriculum. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nmoira Posted March 10, 2010 Share Posted March 10, 2010 Absolutely not, and testing is not something we'll have to worry about. Oregon requires only that a child achieve a composite score above the 15th percentile. Homeschooled kids with learning disabilities can get an IEP, which will exempt them from testing requirements. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mommytobees Posted March 10, 2010 Share Posted March 10, 2010 Nope, no way. No how. When my dd had to take the 1st grade test (because of the state we lived in) I realized while she was taking the test that she didn't know what a log cabin was or in what part of American History it would be located. Oops. Kris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Renai Posted March 10, 2010 Share Posted March 10, 2010 Nope. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
m0mmaBuck Posted March 10, 2010 Share Posted March 10, 2010 Nope. I touch on the 11 state-required topics but I don't gear my curriculum toward testing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LaissezFaire Posted March 10, 2010 Share Posted March 10, 2010 That would be a big NO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sebastian (a lady) Posted March 10, 2010 Share Posted March 10, 2010 Just wondering if anyone does this? I think that there are a lot of mismatches between the average standardized test and classical curriculum. There just isn't a test out there that is going to ask my kids to identify the major characteristics of Athens and Sparta or to describe the rise of feudalism or to do much of anything with a foreign language. I find much of the social studies questions on the tests I've seen to be petty. (For example, I don't really care if my kids can identify which drawing is the capital and which is the white house. I do really care that they understand the three branches of government and the difference between the Senate and House of Representatives. NB - living overseas, I especially don't care about the image over the content.) If you have a precocious reader, I think that the language arts scores can tend to be off by quite a bit. My son was reading Redwall with high comprehension, but did poorly on one battery because he didn't know what a vowel was. On the other hand, I have occasionally given my kids the released tests from Virginia for math and science because it sometimes is reassuring and sometimes reminds me of things that I need to make sure I cover at some point (like the time I realized that I hadn't exposed my kids to what an amphibian was). Tests are a tool. But they are not what drives my curriculum. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mary in GA Posted March 10, 2010 Share Posted March 10, 2010 No. We are not required to do the state standardized testing that the public school kids do, so we don't have to worry about which science and history topics they are covering in what grade. We meet our standardized testing requirements by taking the IOWA test. Mary Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pippen Posted March 10, 2010 Share Posted March 10, 2010 I just read an article that described how one of the education professors who led the charge on the importantace of testing in NCLB has reversed her position. I wish I could find the article again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pippen Posted March 10, 2010 Share Posted March 10, 2010 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/03/education/03ravitch.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lizzie in Ma Posted March 10, 2010 Share Posted March 10, 2010 Though we do test every year for my own purposes. I do not ever give the results to the schools. Homeschooled kids, especially those following a classical history rotation, will often be immersed in Ancients for a year and miss the standard "who are Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King" questions. I do not care. One of the joys of homeschooling is that you do NOT have to follow what the public schools are doing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elegantlion Posted March 10, 2010 Share Posted March 10, 2010 No. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dmmetler Posted March 10, 2010 Share Posted March 10, 2010 My husband was concerned on this, so I went through the curriculum we've planned for next year (and the four year cycle) in conjunction with the state standards-and I'm not worried in the slightest. In Science, while there will be standards we won't address in 1st grade if we stick to WTM recommendations, over the four year cycle she'll address far more than is actually in the state's recommendations, so that's good. Social studies, same deal. Over the course of the four year cycle, she'll far exceed what is actually taught in ps. Honestly, most of what is in the 1st grade science and social studies standards seem like skills that a child normally would have learned via exposure by this age. How many 6 yr old kids don't know that you can sometimes see the moon during the day, but you can't see the sun at night? Or that clouds and rain go together? Or the kinds of buildings you find in a city? (And I'm talking businesses, public buildings, churches, houses here, not architectural styles!) Math and LA are more sequential, but, again, what you'll do if you follow WTM will be ahead of what is expected. 3rd grade tested standards seem more like 2nd grade skills. The only tweak I plan to make was that I downloaded the state "subject specific vocabulary by grade level" guide, and I'll make sure that if there's a term that they use that the resources we use don't, it gets mentioned that "this is also sometimes called an X". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doubledutymom Posted March 10, 2010 Share Posted March 10, 2010 NOPE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris in VA Posted March 10, 2010 Share Posted March 10, 2010 One of the options for VA homeschoolers is to have your child's curriculum aligned with the SOL's, our state standardized test. Honestly, I'm not even sure how to prove that, and I wouldn't want to. We use a different option that involves picking whatever we want and schooling whenever we want, as much as we want, and then passing an ITBS or Stanford test in at least the 25th percentile. Like many have said, our scope and sequence as neo-classical homeschoolers just doesn't match up grade for grade. FWIW, my dd went to 3rd grade in ps last year. They had to take an end of the year SOL test in Social Studies. It was cumulative, for K-3rd. She got enough in that one year to pass it with only one wrong. That's how much they reviewed and emphasized the test in her classroom! Most of it, she knew from living on the earth for 9 years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aude sapere Posted March 10, 2010 Share Posted March 10, 2010 No for us, as well! Carrie btw, Pippen, thanks for posting the link! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EKS Posted March 10, 2010 Share Posted March 10, 2010 No. However last year we switched to the Standards edition of Singapore math because the only problems my son got wrong on the ITBS involved topics that aren't covered in the US edition. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 10, 2010 Share Posted March 10, 2010 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/03/education/03ravitch.html?scp=2&sq=diane%20ravitch&st=cse She also has a new book out: The Death and Life of the American School, by Diane Ravitch. I'm halfway through -- bought it mostly because there is a long chapter on the San Diego schools under Alan Bersin a few years back; he was extremely controversial because of his aggressive, top-down, autocratic style of reform. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JESSICAinMD Posted March 10, 2010 Share Posted March 10, 2010 No way. When I was in PS it seemed as though we spend more time being coached for tests than learning, that is one reason why we home school. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joyful Posted March 10, 2010 Share Posted March 10, 2010 No. I do my own thing. I follow WTM loosely, and won't be able to if I were to plan around testing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pippen Posted March 10, 2010 Share Posted March 10, 2010 Hmmm, looks like state standards may morph into national standards. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35792943/ns/us_news-washington_post/ I can just imagine the millions it will cost states to redo materials to align them with these standards, should it pass. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crimson Wife Posted March 10, 2010 Share Posted March 10, 2010 I think that there are a lot of mismatches between the average standardized test and classical curriculum. There just isn't a test out there that is going to ask my kids to identify the major characteristics of Athens and Sparta or to describe the rise of feudalism or to do much of anything with a foreign language. I find much of the social studies questions on the tests I've seen to be petty. (For example, I don't really care if my kids can identify which drawing is the capital and which is the white house. I do really care that they understand the three branches of government and the difference between the Senate and House of Representatives. NB - living overseas, I especially don't care about the image over the content.) If you have a precocious reader, I think that the language arts scores can tend to be off by quite a bit. My son was reading Redwall with high comprehension, but did poorly on one battery because he didn't know what a vowel was. On the other hand, I have occasionally given my kids the released tests from Virginia for math and science because it sometimes is reassuring and sometimes reminds me of things that I need to make sure I cover at some point (like the time I realized that I hadn't exposed my kids to what an amphibian was). Tests are a tool. But they are not what drives my curriculum. :iagree: I plan my curriculum around what *I* think is important, not what some committee of bureaucrats up in Sacramento thinks all kids in a certain grade should study. That said, I do include a limited amount of standardized test prep. Not remotely as much as what the government-run schools around here do, but the fact that I do *ANY* puts me in the minority of HS families in my area. I want my DD's scores to reflect her actual abilities rather than be artificially depressed just because I didn't cover some particular topic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dell Posted March 10, 2010 Share Posted March 10, 2010 No. Like others we test on occasion, but don't give the results to the schools. I don't factor the state's public school objectives into our educational plans at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Alfred Academy Posted March 10, 2010 Share Posted March 10, 2010 Nope...could care less about them. Thankfully I have an advisor (we belong to a charter school) who feels the same way. :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
delaney Posted March 10, 2010 Share Posted March 10, 2010 Like PP we also have to do a standardized test but they do not have to include history and science. As long as they continue with math and language skills they will do fine I am sure. VA gives the SOL tests which beat the kids over the head with VA history for 2 years straight and then you never hear about it again really after 5th grade! WHat a waste of time@ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mom31257 Posted March 10, 2010 Share Posted March 10, 2010 I don't plan our curricula around it, but I do utilize test prep materials before they take the tests. We actually choose to test our kids more often than the state requires. I want to see how they are doing compared to others and see if there might be areas of weakness I did not catch. I give the tests myself, so I can see what they actually missed. I want them to be used to standardized tests for later in high school or if something happened that we had to put them in school. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rafiki Posted March 10, 2010 Share Posted March 10, 2010 . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robsiew Posted March 11, 2010 Share Posted March 11, 2010 NO WAY!! One of the reasons I don't have my kids in PS is because I want to be in control of what they learn and when. I don't want someone else deciding for me what my children should know. We are testing this week and I'll be so glad to be done. I keep telling my kids... it's okay if you don't know something on the test... and... I'm so sorry you cannot show all that you learned this last year. The best part of the week though was when my kids got to reading comprehension and LOVED it because, "This is exactly what we do in writing!" (we use WWE) Ask them the main point of "any" paragraph and they are all over that!!! :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HappyCrazyMama Posted March 11, 2010 Share Posted March 11, 2010 Never even crossed my mind. :) In WA we are required to test every year but never required to show it to anyone. Not that it matters my children have always scored well (and we aren't very rigorous) so I don't have anything to hide. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluemongoose Posted March 11, 2010 Share Posted March 11, 2010 NOPE! I was forced to do that in PS as a teacher....I will not do it with my children! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KarenC Posted March 11, 2010 Share Posted March 11, 2010 I wouldn't even consider it. Karen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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