Annual Assessments: New York State

The school year is coming to an end already?  So much to do!  Don't worry; it's not as daunting as you may think, but there are several choices to make along the way.

This post is limited to annual assessments for grades 1 through 8, since that is the range in which my own children fall, and I have not yet had any experience with assessments for higher grades.

To begin, you have two options from which to choose:  A) written narrative assessment, or B) a commercially published norm referenced achievement test.

In grades 1 - 3, you need only submit a written narrative assessment. 

In grades 4 - 8, you may choose between the written narrative and the achievement test, but you have to alternate between the two each year.  Many home schoolers choose to use the written narrative in 4th grade, followed by the achievement test in 5th grade, etc., because that means fewer tests for the child, but it's entirely up to you.

In all instances, you're faced with making another choice.  Who will administer the assessment to your child?

New York regulations give you some leeway.  You can choose to use a certified teacher, a peer group review panel, or "other person".  The easiest choice is to use the "other person", because that person can be YOU!  Yes!  New York State recognizes you, the parent, as qualified to teach your children, so who better to assess whether or not your child "has made adequate academic progress"?  You can write the narrative assessment, and you can administer the achievement test.

But, wait!  There is a catch.  Your choice of who will administer the assessment to your child has to be approved by your school district.  See, they can't tell you who to use for the assessments, but they can say no to whomever you choose to use.  Bummer!

So, here comes another choice for you to make.  Do you want to risk hassling with the school district over who will or won't administer your child's assessments?  Or do you want to make it as easy on yourself as possible? 

Our first home schooling year, we decided to use a certified teacher, just to avoid any hassle (that backfired, by the way, but I'll talk more about that in a later post).  But I really wanted to just administer the assessments myself, because nobody knows my boys and the progress they've made over the years better than me!

The process is the same, no matter your choice.  At the time you submit either your 2nd or 3rd Quarterly Report, include one or two sentences stating what your plan is for your Annual Assessment.  If the school district disapproves of your choice, they will contact you.  If they do not disapprove, they will either contact you, or, they will do nothing.  Hearing nothing from your district in regards to your Annual Assessment plan can be regarded as the equivalent of approval of your plan.

Here's the statement I slipped in at the end of my 2nd Quarter Report:

Jonnie’s annual assessment will be submitted in the form of a written assessment at the end of this school year.

I never heard anything from my district, so I'm taking that to mean they have no problems with my plan. Since this is my first year writing a narrative assessment, I plan to follow the example given in the Cityschooling blog.  Short, simple, to the point, and meets the State's requirements.

But what if you choose to use an achievement test?

More choices!

New York State accepts quite a few different tests.  Our first year, we chose the CAT (California Achievement Test).  It's a timed test with language arts and mathematics sections.  But our son doesn't do well with timed tests.  In fact, he gets anxious and convinces himself he cannot do any of the problems, then he spends inordinate amounts of time on each problem, trying to make sure he gets it right, and ends up not finishing the test.  Needless to say, he performed rather poorly on the CAT, even though we know that he knows the information on it.

Even though we chose to do a written narrative assessment this year, we decided to also administer a test every year, just so we can gauge what material we still need to cover in the coming years, and what material he's mastered.  This year, we chose to use the PASS (Personalized Achievement Summary System) test from Hewitt Homeschooling.

The PASS test is an assessment test rather than an achievement test, created specifically with home schoolers in mind.  It is not timed.  It contains 3 sections - math, reading, and language [arts].  It also emphasizes that the child is not expected to know all the answers to all the questions.  They're only expected to know between 50% - 90% of the answers.  And before you administer the test, the child takes a short (12 question) placement test that allows his results to be better compared to the results of other kids at his same level.  It's a very relaxed, stress-free approach (you can administer it over the span of several days, if you like), and New York recognizes it as an acceptable assessment tool.  My son will be finishing it up tomorrow, actually, and I've already decided this is the test we will use from now on.

If you choose to use an achievement test for your annual assessment, all you need to do is submit a copy of the test score results with your 4th quarter report.  In New York State, your child needs a composite score above the 33rd percentile on national norms or needs a score that reflects one academic year of growth as compared to a test administered during or subsequent to the prior school year.  A partial list of NY Department of Education approved tests can be found in the regulations, and an extended list can be found here.

You'll want to read the entire NYS Education Department home instruction regulations for complete requirements.  I've covered most of them in this post.  But it's important to be intimately familiar with the regulations... just in case.

If you have any questions about this, please feel free to leave them in the comments.

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