Captain Science’s ITBS results have already arrived, and they are…interesting, to say the least.
Here’s our First Standardized Testing as Homeschoolers brag section: He scored in the 99th% in vocabulary, usage and expression, math concepts and estimation (he actually got 100% of this section correct), and maps and diagrams. He has, according to this test, the language usage, map/diagram reading skills, and math concepts of a college student. Despite having never had any American history, he even managed to score in the 68th% (average) in social studies. His capitalization and punctuation scores could be higher, but a) these are the two areas where he knows what’s correct, but legitimately doesn’t give a crap and b) I’m pretty certain that’s around the point in time of the first day when he and Natasha started making paper airplanes*. Even in those areas, though, he scored at or above grade level, just not as high as his practical performance suggests he’s capable of doing.
The bragging portion is over and the WTF portion is beginning: Because then there’s the math computation score of 18th%.
Something isn’t right here. He missed no questions in the concepts/estimation section and only four questions in the problem solving/data interpretation section. I have a hard time believing he can’t do basic addition/subtraction/multiplication/division and that he remembers nothing from the fractions and decimals work he aced last year. I was kind of freaking out a little that I’d made my child math stupid this year and he was no longer capable of basic computation. HOMESCHOOL FAIL! My children should be taken away from me.
When I calmed down a little, I realized that probably what happened is that he got off sync with filling in the bubbles or some other such nonsense, because when all the other scores are in the 80th% and above, the statistical outlier is probably more indicative of a screw up with the testing materials and not a total absence of subject-area knowledge. He works with fractions and decimals almost every day that he does math and hasn’t had any problems with them, so while I suppose it’s possible that I’m Mom In Denial of Her Son’s Glaring Education Flaws(tm), I think it’s more likely that Captain Science was Son Who Doesn’t Double-Check His Work Even When Reminded Because He’d Rather Make Paper Airplanes With Natasha Who Is Awesome(tm).
I choose to focus on how, despite the random 18th% score, he still pulled off a 92nd% core/90th% composite score, both of which have a grade equivalence of 9th grade and qualify him as Above Average. We will be doing some capitalization/punctuation refresher work over the summer to make sure he really is up to snuff in those areas, and I think I’ll stick with my plan to proctor our own test next year, to minimize shenanigans.
*No, the test proctoring wasn’t exactly…rigorous.
I think Bobby would rather have been making paper airplanes than stuck in his school’s standardized “the only thing you can do is check your work or sit still when done” tests. Are they going to make you retake the tests for the math or are they shrugging it off as he took them and that’s all that counts?
Homeschoolers in GA are required to take a national standardized test every three years. We aren’t required to turn in the results. The state can’t ask for the results via anything other than a subpoena for some sort of legal action (like if they had reason to believe we claimed we were homeschooling him, but were really just allowing him to be a truant). He could have legitimately bombed the whole thing and it wouldn’t matter one whit.
Ari’s math computation was the outlier, too (he didn’t take it this year, but last year in 3rd grade). 99th percentile for math overall, but 55th for math computation. I noticed that it said they don’t include math computation in the math composite, so I guess it would throw a lot of kids scores off otherwise? Yeah, it seemed weird to me, too.
Oh, go ahead and brag, Smrt Mama. Captain Science did great, knows his stuff, and can now tell off homeschooling-naysayers with impunity! Wahoo!!
That said, yeah, proctor own. Wow.
Yep it is almost a certainty that he missed a bubble and threw the whole score off in that section. When we paid 500.00 to have Miss V’s IQ test whe pent half the time eating candy and reading the spines of the books on the psychologists shelves to “see if she was interesting.” She still tested as we suspected, pg. I am glad she is old enough to not take shit apart to see how it works anymore. That gets old , costly and dangerous.