Mt. Pleasant Classical Academy

This is that time of the year when folks start debating and thinking about standardized testing.

Should we or shouldn’t we? What will it tell me that I don’t already know? Do I really want to put my child through this process of being compared to some ’standard’? Do I really agree with the standard?….

oh, and the list of questions go on and on and on. I’ve read the debates on the various homeschool Yahoo loops I’m on, and frankly, I’m not interested in getting into the debate. Just like I will not get into a debate of whether or not it is best to approach hs’ing through a Classically approach or Unit Studies or Charlotte Mason or Unschool or use a little of all of the above. Our approach works for our family but I will admit that depending on the day or the time of the year or the season of our life we have used each of the above approaches. Right now we are very much following an unschooling approach for SK through this Science Olympiad season but it is bugging the heck out of him, for sure It is not his preferred style but it is what is needed at this point. Oh, yes, there’s also school-in-a-box and on-line Charter Home Schools but we haven’t used those, and I’m sure there’s several other approaches I’ve failed to list.

But back to Standardized Testing.

Each year my boys have taken a standardized test and this year it is happening again. Tomorrow MilitaryKid’s friend will arrive at our home and shortly thereafter the two will commence taking the IOWA. My reasons for going through this process is simple so that the boys become familiar with the how to take a test. So that taking a standardized test is semi-familiar to them and not some scary monster they should dread. I do not want their first standardized test to be the PSAT or the SAT when so much more is on the line. Really, with the IOWA nothing is on the line for them. When the test results come back I usually do not find any surprises but DH likes having the benchmark, the ‘official proof’ that DS is where he is.

Interestingly there are all sorts of free standardized tests on the web too. I recently used one with MK. MK’s friend’s mom shared that Texas and some other states have their old standardized tests on the net. To find them I did a google search on Texas Standardized Tests.

Yesterday I had MK take the Texas 5th grade math test and then I fed the results in to be scored on-line. I wasn’t interested in where he stood relative to their standard, but what topics the PS hit that our math program missed or hit lightly. Looking over items that MK missed because his Singapore program does not cover these topics at the 5th grade level, but are in the Texas PS Standards, included finding the median, and probability questions. This not something that I will lose sleep over, but I can make a decision to either hit these topics or ignore it. My decision. It was interesting to me that they hit statistics and probability quite a bit. I taught Statistics at the college level so this will be something easy for me to include and expose MK to throughout the school year.

I also use standardized testing to see what areas MK missed that I felt he should know ‘cold’ and of course the topics he really GOT. It was nice to see:

The student will demonstrate an understanding of the mathematical processes and tools used in problem solving. 8/8

YES I screamed with joy when I saw that. Singapore’s approach to teaching the kids to THINK, to problem solve mathematical problems is a strength of their program and a huge reason I use their program rather than some other program.

Then I examined the problems that he missed, talked with him about them so that I could understand why it was missed, and what needs to be taught or focused upon a bit more.

I also used the test to show MK how to eliminate the answers he can see right off the bat as being incorrect, or how to use the 4 answers given to ID the correct one. Decisions. Maybe by having my boys take standardized tests I’ve helped them to figure out how to eliminate a few possible choices and make decisions a bit easier to make. SK has shared that he uses this approach quite often in other aspects of his life.

I never thought about that possibility when I first made the decision for us to do a standardized test every year……decisions. I just know, that for our family at this point in our lives, doing a standardized test is a part of my sons’ school year education.