Wren, to answer your question (and ducking to avoid the drama going on above!),
If accelerating the core curriculum counts as "unschooling," then I would say it definitely works for state tests. When we started HSing my then-kindergartener last January, grammar wasn't even part of the standards curriculum and not required by our charter. However, we accelerated with Grade 2 and 3 materials because he loves to write and I felt he was ready to start the foundation. He doesn't have to do California's "STAR testing" until the end of 2nd grade (based on his registration, not what level he's studying). When he sat in on the school's scantron equivalent at the end of K, though, he scored in the 99th% amongst 2nd graders. Same thing with 2nd grade math and reading comp.(which came out far higher).
I don't really think of us as "unschooling," though, by accelerating these core curriculum subjects. We're still following a set path, just with our own curriculum and at our own pace. I think of our unschooling coming more through things like social studies (we study Ancient World and geography instead of the community-concepts in 1st grade standards), science (we do subject-immersion, often following where DS wants to go, but still hit the standards), literature (since he's a 9th grade reader and we don't have to do "reading" anymore), and our co-op classes that are filled with "electives" like Spanish, music, fine arts, and drama class. I present the accelerated core curriculum to DS and he accepts that as part of his core work, vs. when we turned Harry Potter into a lit./writing unit because he suddenly fell in love with the series.
Does that make sense?
