My kids are required to test at the grade they're officially in for state-mandated tests. The results aren't available until August (isn't in strange that they test to assess the "year's" materia in Feb, when there are 3 months of school left? DS 9 came home saying he went blank on one math question--drawing a "net" of a figure. He found out later that it was how it would look when "unfolded" flat. I thought, why can't they say "what would a prism look like when unfolded flat?" instead of terminology ("net") that some kids aren't familiar with? Skipped kids are at a "disadvantage" because they may not have been exposed to this vocabulary, even though they could easily have answered the question, if asked clearly.
DS 9 has scored "advanced" in all areas (less than 2 % in our state). His first year testing, the teacher told me he wiggled and squirmed, and ended up laying on the floor to work on it (nice teacher to accommodate, eh?) DS 13 just had a week off high school because only the juniors are required to test and the tests are such high stakes now, they wanted to clear the school so there were no distractions. Does that sound like it's in the best interests of the students? That doesn't count the week off they had during the sophomores' HS competency exams!
