Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy My partner is against testing our child

I find it odd that schools are willing to explore expensive testing without first trying a few cheap "assessments".

1. Give the child increasingly difficult books from the school library. At what level does the child feel challenged? How is the child's behaviour when appropriately challenged? What is child's level of motivation to work at higher level? (Estimated marginal cost: Free. Students are presumably *already* going to the library. Just pick a book off a different shelf!).

2. Borrow math workbooks from higher grade teachers. Give child increasingly difficult work. At what level does the child feel challenged? How is the child's behaviour when appropriately challenged? (Estimated marginal cost: Free).

3. Have a discussion with child about subjects of child's interest. How does child respond? What is level of child's interest/knowledge? What is child's social response to at-level dialogue with an adult? (Estimated marginal cost: 20 minutes of teacher time.)

These initiatives should be common-sense, but sadly aren't.

In your shoes, I'd parse my partner's resistance and explore private testing.

I'm certain that there is some sort of convoluted thinking, or non-thinking, involved.

It could just be habit. Since it is "school" the first natural multi-purpose tool is "test."

Well, one of the "advantages" of formal testing first for the teacher is that often the classroom teacher doesn't feel like they have to do anything while waiting for the consent-schedule-test-report-meet-plan-implement process to wind its way. Plus, it's now someone else's responsibility to figure out the student. And then, let's not forget that it keeps people like me employed!

...To be fair, I spend more time than I would prefer talking people out of testing, and it's not limited to teachers and other school personnel. Plenty of parents and outside careproviders (physicians, therapists) reach for formal testing first, too, without having a clear idea of the actionable information that they want to obtain. Don't get me wrong, I think thoughtful, thorough evaluations can be extremely valuable, but they're best executed when you know what your question is, and in the context of rich naturalistic sources of data, such as the aforementioned informal assessments.

To the OP: I believe that testing is warranted when there is a question/problem to be addressed, or when it is needed for access to resources. There have been many thoughtful responses upthread; I agree with many of them in that mutual discussion and understanding of you and your partner's expectations regarding testing, its functions, and its possible outcomes may go a long way toward identifying areas of consensus. Data informs decision-making, but it does not mandate any particular choices.