My DC's school tests "out of grade level" on DRA and the Gates reading test. We see a lot of growth- DC jumped four grade equivalencies on the Gates test between end of K and end of first.
DC will take the ERB next year, and I'm not sure how it is administered (ceilings). We did the WJ III achievement for Davidson, and may have another achievement test administered privately in a few years if we're concerned about academic growth.
I check the lexile/DRA levels of the books DC enjoys most to see if he's choosing books of gradually increasing difficulty.
I work with DC on math specifically in the summer so that I can ensure that DC is challenged and accumulating skills. IXL is a great program for checking math skills-- it's basically like Kumon (tedious, repetitive), but it does track hard math skill by grade level.
Your situation sounds frustrating-- we dealt with that....a teacher who wouldn't increase the challenge based on the high results of a test that was school administered! We ultimately moved schools because DC was unhappy.
