Last year as a fifth grader, DD took the EXPLORE test through NUMATS. Ohio Achievement Assessments are terrible, and I wanted some useful information about her math abilities because our district starts tracking (though they don’t call it that) in math in sixth grade. When I got her results, I met with the guidance counselor to discuss her math placement. NUMATS recommended Algebra, but DD has serious anxiety issues and a bad case of perfectionism, so I was asking for placement in seventh grade math. The guidance counselor said DD would have to take another above-grade-level test to confirm she could handle the placement. I found out afterwards that DD had to take the OLSAT, grade-level Stanford Achievement Tests in math, reading, and science, and above-grade-level Stanford Achievement Tests in math, reading, and science. The guidance counselor later explained that they had to administer the OLSAT and grade-level achievement tests to establish giftedness before they could consider subject acceleration (even though the gifted program was eliminated a few years ago in budget cuts), and they tested her in reading and science as well because her EXPLORE results identified her as gifted in reading, science, and superior cognitive as well as math according to Ohio’s criteria for gifted identification (so now she has three sets of test results that all identify her as gifted in math, reading, science, and superior cognitive). DD is now in seventh grade advanced math, but, needless to say, between taking the three Ohio Achievement Assessments and seven other tests last spring, my child who hates taking tests is tested out. I was thinking of taking a year or two off from additional testing and perhaps doing NUMATS again when DD is in seventh or eighth grade to take the ACT or SAT.
I wanted to get a sense of how other parents have their children participate in a talent searches. Do you have your child participate every year, periodically, or only once? What do you think are the benefits or drawbacks to yearly participation?
