I've notice people discussing the EXPLORE and think it would be a good idea for next year. I don’t know if the school would pay attention but it would be a good, national gauge of where she is.
One caveat about EXPLORE, it is an achievement test. For reading and writing, it probably will be a good gauge. If your child hasn't been exposed to advanced material, it may not provide much information re math. For example, my DD missed a math question that required the application of the Pythagorean theorem. She hadn't learned it yet so she had no idea how to solve the problem. (They covered it in school about a week later, Grrr). In this respect, it was a test of her knowledge base rather than her mathematical ability.
BTW, if they ignored her CTY and KTEA results, I wouldn't hold out too much hope that EXPLORE will sway them. Still, it can't hurt to gather more data. Repeated high results over time may eventually influence them as they did in Jtooit's situation. You also could use it for a DYS application if that applies.
