Crystle Bledsoe

Hello everyone. I'm from Oregon and have two children. I have an 8yearold dd and a 4yearold ds. They are wonderful and full of energy(hate to brag and all) love them. I'm new to any kind of group or chat.I don't know much about computers. Anyway, I've tried to join groups in my area, but most are very stict and not open to outside opinions. I've been having trouble with my dd, I have never had her in public school, but have pushed learning on her K-1. She is having a hard time of it. This year I wanted to try something different. Unschooling sounded very interesting. How do you keep up with the state mandatory testing?
Any info would be appreciated.
Crystle B.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

soggyboysmom

--- In [email protected], "Crystle Bledsoe"
<LCB@o...> wrote:
> Hello everyone. I'm from Oregon and have two children. I have an
>8yearold dd and a 4yearold ds. They are wonderful and full of energy
>(hate to brag and all) love them. I'm new to any kind of group or
>chat.I don't know much about computers. Anyway, I've tried to join
>groups in my area, but most are very stict and not open to outside
>opinions. I've been having trouble with my dd, I have never had her
>in public school, but have pushed learning on her K-1. She is
having >a hard time of it. This year I wanted to try something
different. >Unschooling sounded very interesting. How do you keep up
with the >state mandatory testing?
> Any info would be appreciated.
> Crystle B.
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
The FIRST thing you do is figure out what the law says (not what the
school district tells you). For example, if testing is required (and
there's no alternate form of evaluation available), what tests are
acceptable, when does testing need to be done (is it annual)?, who
administers the test (can it be done at home)? who sees the results?
is there a required minimum score?

http://www.oceanetwork.org/started/newlaw2.pdf shows that the
testing is in grades 3,5,8,and 10 only. The minimum score is the
15th percentile (that means that of 100 test takers, your score is
higher than 14 of them). If the test is below that level, you have
to retest the following year. If it is the same or higher, on you go
with life. If it drops, then you get more oversight for a year and
retest. If it goes up, on you go with life. If it goes down again,
then further steps may occur. But that's a worst-case scenario. AND
the test CAN NOT be the same as the public schools take because they
are not nationally normed tests. That's one end of it.

At the other end of things, remove any weight from the tests by
playing with them. Do enough to 'pass' (15th percentile is really
low) then make dot patterns or whatever - invalidate the results in
your own mind. Check out http://sandradodd.com/tests

--Deb

Daniel MacIntyre

I agree with this post - Especially about not worrying about it. 15%
is VERY low - especially when looking at national standards. the
number of children who don't speak English as their native language in
our schools is higher than this number and they are included in the
national standards.

On 9/23/05, soggyboysmom <debra.rossing@...> wrote:
> --- In [email protected], "Crystle Bledsoe"
> <LCB@o...> wrote:
> > Hello everyone. I'm from Oregon and have two children. I have an
> >8yearold dd and a 4yearold ds. They are wonderful and full of energy
> >(hate to brag and all) love them. I'm new to any kind of group or
> >chat.I don't know much about computers. Anyway, I've tried to join
> >groups in my area, but most are very stict and not open to outside
> >opinions. I've been having trouble with my dd, I have never had her
> >in public school, but have pushed learning on her K-1. She is
> having >a hard time of it. This year I wanted to try something
> different. >Unschooling sounded very interesting. How do you keep up
> with the >state mandatory testing?
> > Any info would be appreciated.
> > Crystle B.
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> The FIRST thing you do is figure out what the law says (not what the
> school district tells you). For example, if testing is required (and
> there's no alternate form of evaluation available), what tests are
> acceptable, when does testing need to be done (is it annual)?, who
> administers the test (can it be done at home)? who sees the results?
> is there a required minimum score?
>
> http://www.oceanetwork.org/started/newlaw2.pdf shows that the
> testing is in grades 3,5,8,and 10 only. The minimum score is the
> 15th percentile (that means that of 100 test takers, your score is
> higher than 14 of them). If the test is below that level, you have
> to retest the following year. If it is the same or higher, on you go
> with life. If it drops, then you get more oversight for a year and
> retest. If it goes up, on you go with life. If it goes down again,
> then further steps may occur. But that's a worst-case scenario. AND
> the test CAN NOT be the same as the public schools take because they
> are not nationally normed tests. That's one end of it.
>
> At the other end of things, remove any weight from the tests by
> playing with them. Do enough to 'pass' (15th percentile is really
> low) then make dot patterns or whatever - invalidate the results in
> your own mind. Check out http://sandradodd.com/tests
>
> --Deb
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>


--
Daniel
(Amy is doing a half marathon for Team in Training
Anyone who wants to help can do so by going to:
http://www.active.com/donate/fundraise/tntgmoAMacint )

soggyboysmom

--- In [email protected], Daniel MacIntyre
<daniel.macintyre@g...> wrote:
> I agree with this post - Especially about not worrying about it. 15%
> is VERY low
Just wanted to clarify - 15th percentile is not the same as a score of
15% correct. 15% is based on how many the individual gets correct - so
it is possible everyone could score 15 percent. 15th percentile means
that of every 100 people taking the test, 14 people scored lower and
85 people scored higher than your score. Your percentage could be 6%
correct answers but if 14 people scored 5% correct or less, you'd be
in the 15th percentile. If you and 98 others taking that test at that
time for that grade level scored 15 percent, then you'd be in the 99th
percentile because only 1 of the 100 people scored higher than you
did. On percentile scored tests you'll usually see two numbers,
a "raw" number that is the number or percent answered correctly and a
percentile score that shows where in the pile you ended up. Kind of
like at a car race - if one car goes 200+ mph and you go 120 mph and
the 98 other cars go 100 mph, you'd be in second place AND in the 99th
percentile - doesn't matter whether you went 199 mph or 101 mph,
you're still in the 99th percentile.

HTH
--Deb

jlh44music

> Just wanted to clarify - 15th percentile is not the same as a score
of 15% correct. 15% is based on how many the individual gets correct -
so it is possible everyone could score 15 percent. 15th percentile
means that of every 100 people taking the test, 14 people scored
lower and 85 people scored higher than your score. Your percentage
could be 6% correct answers but if 14 people scored 5% correct or
less, you'd be in the 15th percentile. If you and 98 others taking
that test at that time for that grade level scored 15 percent, then
you'd be in the 99th percentile because only 1 of the 100 people
scored higher than you did. On percentile scored tests you'll usually
see two numbers, a "raw" number that is the number or percent
answered correctly and a percentile score that shows where in the
pile you ended up.>>>

Thanks for spelling this out Deb (and I'm a math person, but was
still confused!). Before we decided to do a narrative report
dd "voluntarily" (she didn't like it but she wanted to see what it
would be like IF we chose that method) took the CAT/5 standardized
test during April vacation (she was still in school, but we knew we'd
be homeschooling this fall) to see what it was like. Initially I
thought it would be "easier", take one or two weeks (depending on
where you order it from) to do it and be done with it. HA! She
hated it, and when I got the report back, it was so confusing to
interpret. I put it aside, but I'll go back and look at it again,
ONLY because I want to see if I can figure it out now based on your
clarification.
Jann (just for general info, we're in MA and have three choices for
reporting - standardized testing, portfolio of dated work samples or
a narrative report)