ohhh this sounds sadly familiar. my sympathies, TNC.
we had a really hard time finding out what was going on with DD's reading assessments last year. whenever there was a reading test, she never showed any improvement - which, for a relatively bright kid seemed a bit odd. and just like your situation, they wouldn't tell us anything except that she wasn't ready to move on. i knew DD HATED working on reading, but she wasn't even 5, so for a long time i didn't push the point. when i realized she could read newspaper headlines and random chapter titles and all kinds of neat stuff, i finally started asking the teachers some direct questions.
trying to get helpful answers was impossible. what i eventually had to do was obtain a copy of the most recent test, and then DD and i sat down together to figure out how to game the system. it had the craziest scoring system: for example, they were taking OFF points for self-correction, so DD simply learned to slow down her overall oral cadence - just enough so that she'd have time to self-correct in her head before it came out of her mouth. it wound up sounding a little sing-songy/passive-aggressive, but i could live with that.
once she figured out how to "work" the test, she blasted through 9 levels in one day, at which point they stopped working with her (the dreaded "out of grade level")... so we're homeschooling now - and fwiw she went from zero reading last March to now
comfortably reading middle school material. if you're thinking about homeschooling - i have to say our experience so far (all 2.5 months of it!) has been amazing.
the decision to homeschool came over me gradually - a piece here and a piece there until i realized it could be done. i work from home full time, and everyone thinks i'm nuts to do both simultaneously, but honestly it's so much less stressful. fighting (ha, i mean advocating!) with the school was a full time job and i felt like i was losing my mind.
all the best, TNC!!
