What About Standardized Testing?

Yearly standardized testing is definitely a hot-button issue among homeschooling families. Some embrace it as a means to gauge their homeschooling efforts, while others dread it like the plague.  And, to make it even more complicated, homeschool testing requirements vary wildly from state to state.

I am often asked by non-homeschoolers, “What about testing? How do you know your children on pace with their peers? Do they have to take standardized tests each year?”

I dread these kinds of questions for several reasons. One, they are often difficult questions to answer with no real right or wrong answers. I’m more apt to answer when I know I’m being I’m asked out of true curiosity. But other times, well, it feels like more of a “challenge” from a non-homeschooling (or anti-homeschooling) person than an actual question.

My typical response usually goes something like this –“Well, I don’t put a lot of stock into our required annual testing. We jump the hoop because it’s a requirement in our state and we have to do it. Sometimes it gives us good information about academic performance, and sometimes it’s just one test that shows how good my kids are at taking standardized tests.”

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I really do try to be gracious and polite when giving my answer, I promise. However, sometimes I’d really like to respond with something like this – “How do you know that the public and private schooled kids are on pace with their homeschooled counterparts?”

The truth is, the process of homeschooling is in itself, a constant way of assessment. Each day, I get the opportunity to engage with my children on a one-on-one basis. I know quite assuredly on any given day “where they are at” academically in any given subject area. I have the opportunity to question them, check them, assess them, and yes … fine-tune their learning to fit their unique needs. If we need to go back and review a concept, we do. If we master something early, we can move ahead without permission or guilt. All of this … and no bubble sheet necessary! If anything, homeschooling is the ultimate in education assessment.

Many, if not most public educators will tell you that standardize testing is, at best, seriously flawed. Teachers lament the fact much of their day and schedule is geared towards “teaching to the test.” Their school days are filled with unreasonable standards and in some schools, their career performance reviews depend on student performance on the test.

Likewise, many students (and their families) are positively stressed-out by the constant, ongoing methods of benchmark and standardized testing. The last few months of the school year are spent cramming for “the test” and sometimes even re-teaching and re-testing when a student doesn’t perform as proficiently as the state deems necessary.

We homeschoolers, even those with yearly testing requirements, enjoy a level of educational freedom that is unmatched. Sure, meeting educational goals are important, but the way we achieve them and assess them is different, and in a very good way. We don’t have to stress about “the test” even when our state requires one each year. We can revel in the fact each day is a continual assessment of our children’s capabilities.

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