I'm curious is anyone has insights about this before I arrange another meeting with my daughter's teacher. About once a month, the kids take a STAR assessment to monitor their progress. I know because my daughter tells me when they take it. I tried e-mailing the teacher to ask for her scores, but received no response. When I actually stopped by, I was told they are not allowed to give parents the scores and can just say general things like "your child is improving."

I thought parents were generally always allowed access to educational records, unless maybe this is a school assessment issue? Are there legitimate reasons why a school would not share these types of scores with parents?

I'd just like to understand the issues involved before I talk with them more. It's not really critical for me to see the scores, but I don't think she is really working at the right level and have been trying to negotiate with them.

My DC's schools are the same way about test scores - drives me bonkers! Actually, under FERPA, you have a right to access your DC's academic records. I'm no expert and I have not had to resort to quoting the law to obtain records, but the schools are very slow to share them, and when they do they are often incomplete or partial. I try to limit my requests, but this has been a consistent problem and I think it probably partially due to some school personnel being unaware of the law - JMO.

I share your concern. It is important for parents/guardians to have data and information to track their children's academic growth. This best positions them to coach their child, partner with the school, or independently address at home any potential underlying issues, such as vision, hearing, potential LD, need for remediation/tutoring, experimenting with a different learning style, or need for greater academic challenge.

Interested parents may wish to check the website of the test company. STAR assessments are from Renaissance Learning (Renlearn.com). There is a parent's resource tab. The downloadable resource states Sample reports, and a book selection website are also shared.

As a concerned parent, you may wish to check your school or district website to see if there is any information to manage your expectations about how frequently parents/guardians may receive pupil records, assessment results, progress reports, etc.

You may also wish to check online to see what rules may be in place in your State regarding a pupil's education records.

With the recent introduction of longitudinal data collection and student information systems, policies and laws may need to be developed regarding the handling of the many data points which may be collected.

If you do not find policies or laws in place which list each piece of data collected and recognize the rights of parents/guardians to have access to review and correct each piece of information, you may wish to consider contacting a local school board member and/or state legislator who may be able to introduce such a policy or bill. Some possible reasons to include in an impact statement may be: fostering parental involvement, student support, and home-school partnership.

In an educational system focused on benefitting the child, parents need to be fully informed with "primary source" data, not merely a summary of it.

These are not state mandated tests; they do those separately in the spring. This is something the school does to monitor progress and I'm just not sure why they wouldn't share the information. I will have to look up the legalities more if I can't get access, but I'm just not sure why they wouldn't want to share it. The teacher was actually looking at it while talking with me, so it wasn't difficulty of accessing the information.

My DS's school does this from time to time. The reason that they haven't wanted to share information with me (sometimes) is because DS was doing so well, always 99th percentile. So, in their eyes there is nothing to show me. Of course, the first time I poked around and looked at my son's scores I realized that he was also scoring in the 99th percentile a few grade levels up. So, he was inappropriately placed in his classroom environment. Of course, this revelation began the year long conversation that we are currently having about how the school needs to meet my son's needs as he's demonstrated them.

So, they may not want to give you the scores because you will want to know how the school is going to meet your child's needs. And if your school is anything like my school, the school has zero interest in meeting your child's needs and in fact will do everything they can to knock your child "down to size".

I hope for you, though, that the reason is something far more innocuous.

I don't think that this is usually the teacher's fault - again, my DC's teachers are clearly told to share limited information with parents. If you've already asked the teacher, you may need to ask the principal next. I had to do this to get one set of test scores - then I had to set up a meeting just to get them. The meeting was actually COMPLETELY unnecessary, but I jumped through their hoops in an effort to avoid an adversarial situation. I want the school to feel like my partner, not my adversary - so I was firm (as my child's first teacher, wouldn't I be the person MOST interested in my child's scores?), but as completely NON-adversarial as possible. Keep FERPA in your back pocket, and use if necessary. I "enforced FERPA" without outright mentioning it, if that makes any sense.

In our case, there was nothing unusual going on - the school simply decided not to send out the scores to parents (I guess they have since changed this for this particular test). DD was above-grade level in her scores, but the school simply had chosen to not share them with any of the parents - which is wrong, IMO.

My DD takes the STAR test to assess her AR Reading Level several times a year and the kids are told their score and the parents most certainly would be given the score if they asked.

I would simply ask your child what AR level they are asked to search in when they visit the school library.

The level is their score.

Agreed.

Just one small difference in how this was explained to me - FERPA covers records maintained by a school... whereas some of the new longitudinal data collection and student information systems may maintain the data elsewhere (such as at a test provider or in a state-wide or national database, etc). As I understand it, this is why some school districts and states may be considering introducing new policies and laws in regard to student data and information.

While considering or undertaking advocacy at various levels, I definitely agree it is in everyone's best interests to not be adversarial toward the teachers (or anyone). Researching, gaining background information, keeping records at home of when DC took various assessments, can all be done peacefully and pleasantly.

Thank you, everyone, for your help. I don't want to be adversarial, and the main reason I posted this was to try to understand their policy before trying to push for the scores.

It actually isn't just a question of her reading level; they seem to assess other things with it as well. I haven't been able to get much information, though. She says they assess math and I'm especially interested in that because she is supposed to be working ahead and doesn't seem to be doing so,

They use AR, which is another source of frustration. She has a huge range and always gets books at the minimum sixth grade level because she likes fiction and there is so little at the high school level (by AR standards) in their library that is relaxing reading material. She doesn't like the books intended for older children because they are often about issues that she finds upsetting; they don't have classics that would be more challenging.

apm, just a suggestion, but if she likes to read non fiction, it will offer her a wider variety of books to choose from. Non-fiction books often have higher AR levels. After my DD brought home a fiction book that was within her AR level, but content was completely inappropriate for her age (at the time she was 7), I spoke to the school librarian and we agreed that she could select one fiction book that was within any AR level and one non-fiction book that matched her AR level. My DD actually ended up enjoying learning about historical people and I was surprised at how she rose to the challenge in her reading.

I have talked with the school about allowing her to take a lower level book for enjoyment if she takes a harder book for her test. They have said that was okay, but it hasn't happened. My daughter is 8 and is shy about asking, so I have sent messages to her teacher specifically asking if she could do that on a particular day. It never seems to happen.

I obviously can't speak to the practice in your district or at your school. However, I did learn that our official "school record" includes a very limited number of items, at least partly for practicality reasons. We have over 100,000 students in our district and the paperwork/recording keeping would be expensive and cumbersome otherwise. Any tests mandated by law are part of the official school record and provided to the parents. Other tests may be requested through the school adminstration. In particular, my children had taken national tests in the younger grades (1st & 2nd) that I did not see until years later (when I requested them) and barely knew were adminstered at the time. In our case, the district wasn't trying to hide the scores. It simply was no big deal to them and in fact the scores for the whole school were all compiled together and the adminstrator had to manually blocked out the other students' scores to show me my children's scores. Ultimately, the administrator had to figure out how to generate an individual student report through the district, which took some time but I obviously didn't pressure him because there was no reason to hurry. Sometimes the school provided testing to catch potential problem students or to get a sense of the demographics for the school.

Your teacher may not have authority to release standardized test scores without the administrator's approval. You should just email one of the adminstrators and/or make an appointment to go in and review the scores.

Anytime I have requested testing information or scores on either DD8 or DD9 this is how it went -
I emailed or called the principal and asked for any and all testing they had done. The principal then gathered that info or told the current teacher to get that info for me and then a sealed envelope was sent home with the girls in their backpacks. I have received information on STAR, MAP, and AR on both girls; and state assessment scores for DD9. The first time I requested this info with DD9 I didn't know what some of the abbreviations stood for and I called the principal for clarification. She readily explained what each category stood for and what that meant in terms of progress and percentile, etc. Other than telling us parents if our child meets or exceeds, etc. on the state assessments, our school doesn't give out any other testing information of their own volition. They put all the tests on the school calendar so we know what day they test, but then they don't tell us how our child did. At least we can have the information if we ask, but I bet I may very well be the only parent in the last couple years to even ask for that information.

I agree with what some others have posted - I don't think they can keep this information from you, but you may have to go higher up the ladder than the teacher to get it.

In our district (in BC, Canada), the student's file is the property of the parent and the district is just the custodian, so... legally we have the right to see anything the file contains, including all test scores.

The only time I've been denied access to something in DS's file was when I asked to see notes taken by the TA, and I was refused for privacy reasons because in that particular instance she had made notes about several students in the same log. (I intended to asked if I could have a copy with the other students' names blacked out but I never did).

I worked as a volunteer in the classroom for several years working with this program. My kid's school stopped using this program above 4/5th grade because at that point the schools switched from 'learning to read' to 'reading to learn'. Plus since our school had many kids who read above grade level the school couldn't find appropriate books at a reading level that were age appropriate and in the lists. (And the school was a K-8) In my opinion this program works best when readers are still in that learn to read phase. To put it in perspective, fiction that average adult reads for 'fun' is only about a 8/9 grade level.

I second the suggestions she uses 'non fiction' books for her AR book. As to the scores, they might not be wanting to tell you because they are relatively meaningless. At this level she might not be improving like someone reading at the lower levels who improve by this measure rapidly. In addition from my memory the higher the level, the longer these tests take. My son more than once just gave up because he got bored of taking the test.

I appreciate all of the suggestions. I've been wondering if they may not want to show them to me because of a lack of improvement. I've been asking for her to be able to do something different because she just isn't getting challenged and that would support my argument. She reads a huge amount, but most fiction is below her level already.

School starts back next week, so we'll see what they say.

Did you go back and ask for the scores?

I think I would be more irritated that they are having the kids take the STAR test multiple times a year. That is a school that is teaching to the test, and then double checking that it is working. Ugh. What a waste of time.

I still have not been able to get scores. I did manage to talk with the principal and am hoping to meet with her to talk about a variety of issues, including this one.

My child took an assessment in K in our local parochial school and the teacher told me directly that neither parents nor teachers saw the results, but rather they were sent to the head Archdiocesan office. Needless to say, we did not last long at that school. I think different schools/teachers/admin. have varying opinions, for sure, about whether or not people should know their IQ. As a child, I had a huge suspicion that I was outside of the norm and I took it upon myself (in the same parochial type setting) to look at my file when the opportunity presented itself. I clearly feel that we have the right and the need to understand ourselves, so please know that you are not alone and there are probably a large number of people, especially in the United States, who feel they have the right and need to know. Good Luck! Don't let anyone make you feel strange for wanting to know; it is actually part of our nature to be so mentally curious.

If anyone is interested, I found a nice way to get the ZPD from star early literacy.

Our scores furnish these results, and I can ask for them at any time. Our issues as that the school could only administer early literacy below third grade, and I needed the ZPD on my advanced early readers. When I found the conversation. The school asked me for a copy. it's been pretty accurate, too.

Is there a gifted coordinator there that you could cozy up to? Ask for a conference and that they have copies of X, Y, and Z there for you.

Our school in Virginia does PALS testing two - three times a year. These results don't go home, though I have requested and received copies before. One teacher stopped the test once my son passed the grade level he was in. Others have pushed it out to see where the reading/comprehension dropped to show more where he truly was grade-level wise for reading. I use the scores to guide his reading choices and I do let him read some things below level because sometimes you just want a quick read. You know?


Good luck!