Cat test outdated?

[journey00]

My family is in town (private school teachers) & I want to show them how well my kids scored.  However, I have been reading on different websites that the CAT is outdated & doesn't carry much weight.  Ugh. :(

 

What says the hive?

[Arcadia]

I don't know anything about CAT but I have in-laws who don't understand homeschooling. My FIL tested my kids on math when they came over to visit. My in-laws are ESL so they can't test my kids' english.

My kids hitting the ceiling for standardized tests just calm their fears but they still think we are weird for not sending our kids to school.

 

My in-laws keep asking for scores from K onwards or we won't have shown them. My dad is a retired public school teacher and he has never bugged us for test scores even though he would like to know too.

 

I don't know your family so I won't know how they would react.

[Elizabeth 2]

When I tested DS immediately after leaving PS, he scored lower on the CAT than on the CC testing performed just six weeks earlier. It is harder. It was developed before NCLB, and the dumbing down. At the very least, it is probably test similar levels to when your family was in school. So, if they were average, and your kids are testing above, than what you are doing is working at least as well as what they grew up with.

[JennSnow]

Uh..not dot downplay your kiddos test results..and I can't vouch for where ya'll live..but here in NY the CAT test is pretty well known among homeschoolers as the "simplest" test out there.  It is most definitely easier than the annual CC aligned standardized tests administered here.  It's the test we give when we just want to get the testing done and out of the way and maybe make sure that the very basic grade benchmarks have been met.

[luuknam]

Uh..not dot downplay your kiddos test results..and I can't vouch for where ya'll live..but here in NY the CAT test is pretty well known among homeschoolers as the "simplest" test out there.

 

Different part of NY maybe, but here people are saying a lot of kids find the PASS easier for the required standardized testing.

 

We did do the CAT, because Iowa and Stanford require you have a BS to administer the test, so it was CAT or PASS.

 

Wrt to the original question about the CAT being outdated, Christian Liberty (iirc) offers the 1970s CAT, which is obviously outdated. Seton offers the early-2000s CAT, which is recent enough, imo. The 3rd grade CAT was okay for the most part, the 1st grade CAT was a little ridiculous at times (missed 2 out of 20 questions on social studies and scored 55th percentile? - yeah, those questions obviously should've been a little harder).

 

The CAT isn't suitable for teasing out what percentile your kid is exactly at, especially for the higher percentiles, but it's good enough to tell whether your kid is doing well, is average, or is struggling, which seems like enough info for busybodies like grandparents or school districts. For example, my 3rd grader scored at the 89th percentile for "total math" on the 3rd grade CAT (missed 3 out of the 70 math questions), and when he took the SCAT (an above grade level test used by CTY - qualified to take it based on his vocab score) a few weeks later, he scored at the 87th percentile on quantitative (math) compared to 5th graders. So, 89th percentile on 3rd grade CAT was probably not overly accurate, but it showed he was doing well, which is all a busybody needs to know.