Honestly, this doesn't sound like a good way to assess handwriting progress - it just doesn't make any kind of sense to me.... to assess handwriting progress you'd want a time-controlled writing sample that includes opportunities to evaluate spacing, upper-vs-lower case, letter formation, pencil grip and pressure on paper, spelling etc. I don't see how using writing examples from his math homework can be used for that... but hey.. maybe it's like word problems on steroids? For first graders???? (sorry for the sarcasm lol).
Yes, this.
I would be just as concerned about the fact that they don't seem to be doing very reliable data collection for the purposes of evaluation as I would the lack of differentiation.
It seems a fairly slipshod way of conducting data collection-- they don't control anything about the conditions under which the writing sample was completed, YK?
