Testing Tips and Resources
“Tests are really a diagnostic tool, rather than an assessment tool. A diagnosis will pinpoint problems. An assessment will judge situations. Tests tell you what a child does not know, rather than what a child does know. Perhaps what the student does not know is simply how to take this particular test.” ~~Laurie Block Spigel, Education Uncensored
Check your state for testing requirements for homeschoolers. This chart compares homeschooling regulations state to state, with a central column noting whether assessment or evaluations are required in that state. To find the regulations for your state, go to this map, click on your state, and scroll down past the private school info to the homeschooling regulations.
New York State Testing Requirements for Homeschoolers
Testing îs required every other year in grades 4-8 and every year in grades 9-12. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO TEST UNTIL GRADE FIVE!
Some parents choose to test in non-testing years. My kids tested in grade 5, 7 and 9-12.
In NYC, I administered the test directly to my kids, at our kitchen table. I was not required to have an outside proctor or licensed teacher administer the test. The regs state those options along with “other person.” I was the “other person” acting as testing proctor. See below for testing tips.
Assessments in Non-Testing Years
Parents can submit a narrative assessment for non-testing years. Except for grades 5, 7 and 9-12, I submitted a narrative statement for the annual assessment. I wrote a single sentence: “[Child’s name] has met or exceeded all of the goals set forth in the IHIP for the current school year [dates] and has improved in all subjects.” I signed it and included it with our fourth quarterly report.
Students in grades K-12 with an IESP that indicates an alternate assessment may provide a written narrative evaluation or a portfolio of examples of the child’s work compared with his/her peers.
Reporting the Assessment
In your 3rd quarterly report you should state the form your assessment will take in the fourth quarterly report, either a narrative statement or a test score.
In your fourth quarterly report, include either your narrative statement (in non-testing years) or a copy of the official test score. Do not just write the test score down in the report. In order to be eligible for a Letter of Completion at the end of the homeschooling process, you must provide official proof of the test scores. The DoE will not warn you about this, and in grade 11 or 12 it is likely too late to remedy the situation. So include a copy of the official score, just the overall percentile. You do not need to include individual subject scores.
Recommended Tests for Assessment
Many families use the P.A.S.S. test (available from Hewitt) which was created for homeschoolers in grades 3 through 8. This is an untimed test.
Also popular is the California Achievement Test (available on paper from Seton, or online from Academic Excellence) for grades 4-12. This test can be taken untimed. You can select the short battery (shorter version).
You can also take the free city-wide ELA and Math tests offered in New York State public schools. Contact your local public school to register for the test (do not contact the DoE but go directly to a public school of your choice. Ask for the testing coordinator. Bring your Letter of Compliance that proves you are homeschooling and shows your child’s grade level. ELA is usually offered in April and Math in May, but contact the school months in advance to make sure your child has a seat. (I do not recommended testing in a public school if your child suffers from testing or school anxiety.)
Additional tests for homeschoolers accepted by the New York State DoE:
Iowa Assessment (formerly Iowa Basic Skills) (You many need a college degree in order to purchase and adminsiter the test.)
Stanford Achievement Test
Metropolitan Achievement Test
Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills - TerraNova Comprehensive Test for grades K-12
Several of these tests are available at Triangle Education Assessments
You can use any of the state-approved standardized assessments listed below.
NYS Regents and NYS ELA/Mathematics examinations- Please note that these exams must be taken at a public or registered nonpublic school. If you want your child to take the Regents or the NYS ELA/Math exams, please contact a local public school to register your child for the exam. Please note that this is at the discretion of the principal.
Iowa Assessments (formerly Iowa Test of Basic Skills)
Stanford Achievement Test Series (formerly Stanford Test of Basic Skills)
Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills (now known as TerraNova® Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills (CTBS) Plus Edition for grades K-12)
California Achievement Test
P.A.S.S. (Personalized Assessment of Student Success) Test
Metropolitan Achievement Test
When to Take the Test
New York State requires that the annual assessment be sent with the fourth quarterly report due at the end of June. You can test at any time during the year, so long as the score is available to send to the DoE by June 30. I usually tested in February, a mid-winter month when we spent most of our time indoors.
I did not administer the test all in one day. Instead, I broke it up into small sections over the course of a week, offering it to the kids when they felt ready to take it. They had water to drink, were not timed, and were not interrupted during the test.
Purchasing a printed copy of the test, I had 4-6 weeks in which to administer it and send it back for scoring. It took a few weeks to get the score. This process is faster if you take the test online. Ordering the test in February gave us plenty of time.
Tips for Improving Test Days
Test days can have a party feel! A private school that boasts the top testers nick-named testing day “Bubble Day.” This nickname was inspired by two things: (1) students fill in the little "bubbles" on multiple choice answers, and (2) every kid gets a pack of bubble gum (against the rules on other days). Students also get lunch at their desks instead of in the cafeteria. Lunch is styled like little Happy Meals, with fries and soda (not offered on other days). Top off Bubble Day, soap bubbles float about the halls and balloons hover about the ceilings. Kids actually jump up and down with excitement when they realize it’s Bubble Day! They don’t worry about their scores, perhaps because those scores are NEVER mentioned! There is no prep or follow-up for these exams and scores are never posted or mentioned. Testing Day feels a lot more like a Party Day.
When my kids had a testing day we would break a few rules. They could have a hard candy or chewing gum during the test (usually neither were allowed), and of course a glass of drinking water. I served their favorite foods for lunch or dinner or snack that day. We played music and danced wildly in the kitchen or living room just before and after a testing period. Our usual schedule was suspended for the rest of that day, and we would do something creative, or physical, or go on a field trip, or watch a movie together. I usually broke up the test into its smallest increments, testing just one section in any given day, so Bubble Day might have been a Bubble Week in our house. Music, dancing, movies, balloons!
Overcoming Testing Anxiety
I had testing anxiety throughout my school life, and I sympathize with kids who go through this. It can take time, but you can make the test less important to everyone, especially your child.
It is important to understand that a test will NOT show what your child knows or has learned so far. Tests are wrongly used as assessments. They were originally created as diagnostic tools, not assessments. A test may (or may not) tell you what your child does NOT know, but it can never reveal what your child DOES know. In fact, tests rarely tells what a student knows! A child's greatest talents and most well developed skills may end up being completely absent from that test. Realize that tests do not a gauge a child's skill, but may only reveal a lack of skill. And the skill lacking might be how to take a test! Children can score poorly in areas they are good at.
We are brainwashed about this by schools, and the teachers are too. It is as if they have forgotten what a diagnostic tool is and what an assessment is. The best assessor is probably your child. Kids might even be a bit hard on themselves, but they probably knows what they are good at and capable of, what they like best, where they excels and where they have weaknesses. Ask the student, and they might offer a more accurate assessment than any test ever could.
Encouraging kids to "just do your best" is a slippery slope. I was told that repeatedly before I took tests, and that advice confounded me. How do you know if you’ve done your best? I always believed that I could do better. Always! Maybe this had something to do with my own test anxiety. Doing my "best" seemed impossible. Let's face it -- on any given day we might do our "best" or do our "worst." Being told to do "my best" just made me worry.
See the Tips for Improving Test Days (above) for ways to lighten the mood and make it more fun.
Preparation
When I got the test in the mail, I read it to myself first. Then I would go over the instructions and the sample questions with my kids and talk about the test days before they actually did it. Sometimes I would take all of the vocabulary out of the test (spelling words, any new words, words from the vocab section), and we would play a few word games with these words. This is the only time that I ever "taught to the test." I know that this is highly controversial, but I did not see this as cheating, since public school teachers do this routinely. I would never have corrected or changed my child's answers on the actual test, and I never looked over their shoulder or interrupted a test.
Practicing for annual achievement tests, and teaching to the test, may not be providing a positive learning experience. We postponed test practice for the college boards in grades 10-12 (see below, Testing Beyond the Annual Assessment). However, you may want to take a look at the standardized state exams.
Practice Exams for New York State ELA, Science and Math tests, for grades 3-8 and for high school
K-12 Test Prep for State Exams, with links to several states
Follow-up
Afterwards I’d ask my kid which parts of the test were hard and which parts were easy. Did they find any parts confusing or difficult? We would go over the test together and talk about the experience. Once my son said that he couldn't understand the entire section on library skills. If this section had been about doing an advanced internet search, he would have done fine, but he had no idea how to search a library card catalog, or even that it was organized by the first initial of the author’s last name. We went over that section together (without changing any of his answers), and I explained the library card system. When I got the scores back, and I saw one section with a percentile far below the others, I already knew what the problem was, and had already corrected it, so it never stressed me out. The low score was not mentioned to my child— we had already taken care of that. I never showed my kids their test scores unless they asked, but I was always prepared to explain the tests and their answers.
About Percentile Scores
75th% percentile is not a C! And 50th% percentile is not failing! Percentile scores can be confusing if we are used to school tests, where 65 is a D (barely passing) and 50 is an outright fail. Typical numerical grades, or A through F, should not be compared to percentile scores. 50th percentile is at the center, right in the middle of students who tested at the same grade level and age. Remember that however your kids do is just fine! If your child is concerned, say that no one needs to see the scores and they really do not matter. Scores can matter later, in college board exams when applying to college or university, or when a specialized program requires test scores in their application, but in the elementary grades test scores are a nonissue.
Any test can be studied for and scores can always be improved. I used to tell my kids that they could ALWAYS gain entrance to a program that required a test, if they took the time to practice the test and improve their scores. With this view, a test score becomes a smaller obstacle and less fearful.
What if my kid gets a low score?
In New York State, homeschoolers are automatically promoted to the next grade. Grade level is established by age, not test scores. If your child’s overall percentile score falls below 33% (in the lower third of students taking the test), the student is placed on “probationary status.” This means that the student must test again the following year (even if it’s a non-testing year) and score the same or greater as the previous year. Parents who think their child might score 33% or lower can avoid probationary status in advance by taking a test the year before. This prepares the parent with a prior test score that can be compared to the next score. If the more recent score is the same or higher, you can avoid probationary status.
"Studies show that, compared with traditionally educated students, the nation's 2 million home-schooled score 15 to 30 percentage points higher on standardized elementary school tests and about half that on their SATs, according to Brian Ray, president of the National Home Education Research Institute." ~~ Crain’s New York Business, July 20, 2008
Boycotting Testing
It is worth noting that some kids avoid taking tests for life. There are homeschoolers who boycott testing (I am not advising this, just saying that there are people who do), even though it is against the regulations. I know of some homeschoolers who were accepted to colleges without any SAT or ACT score. In 2011 or 2012, College of the Atlantic accepted a homeschooled student without any test scores in his application. In the book College Without High School by Blake Boles, the author tells the story of a girl who boycotted testing throughout her life and wrote her college essay on tests and why she refused to take them. That essay got her accepted (without any test scores) to the college of her choice. Persuasive, intelligent writing can do wonders! In my experience, tests are less important than most people think. Believing this fact yourself can help to lessen testing anxiety.
Testing for High School and College
NYC High School entrance exams, Testing to Enter or Re-enter Public School
Middle school homeschoolers who are thinking of applying to a public high school should consider testing in the public schools in 7th grade. This can help with the high school application process.
Hunter High School, a specialized public school for intellectually gifted students, has it’s own exam and application process (it is not an SHSAT school). Admission for Hunter High School is for entering 7th graders only. Despite the name "high school" it is a school for grades 7-12 and only accepts students as first-years. Fifth grade test scores in the highest percentiles (usually around 95% or higher) are required in order to apply to take the 6th grade exam for a possible 7th grade entry. Note: the exam required is taken in 6th grade, but grades from 5th grade exams qualify you to take this exam, so you must take a 5th grade exam if you want to apply to Hunter High School.
Include teacher recommendations and writing samples to enhance the test scores. If the student has been taking standardized tests in the public schools, their records are already in the DoE computer. If the student has homeschooling records and C.A.T. or P.A.S.S. (or other) scores, the family needs to assemble and submit a portfolio for each school they've listed.
Many homeschooled students become curious about school and want to try it out. I have known homeschoolers of all ages (grades 1-12) who experimented with the public school experience. Some were happy; many were not. Homeschoolers may do well in school and still be unhappy there. It is worth noting that homeschoolers do not have to go to high school or earn a high school diploma (or equivalent) in order to get into a topnotch college or university. My sons attended their first-choice colleges and neither had a high school diploma or equivalent. As homeschooled teens in NYC, they enjoyed a wide variety of activities, both academic and social. See Homeschooling in NYC: Support Groups and Classes.
Information on Applying to NYC Specialized High Schools (SHSAT)
Inside Schools has information on individual public schools in NYC
One Parent’s comment:
Meticulous record keeping of the 7th grade is essential as this is the year high school administrators will look at. Because of the paperwork required by the DoE, we have the advantage of being able to "prove" our academics when putting together an application. Understand that as a home schooling parent, YOU may have to educate school administrators regarding what homeschoolers do, a process which will demand more face-to-face time than for a regular public school student. This in itself may prove to be a blessing because it offers the opportunity to present your child as an intelligent, creative, wonderful student, instead of sticking to just a single page of a computer generated application. You may use any standardized test, and not just the NYS ELA and Math testing.
– Ximena, homeschooling parent
SAT and PSAT codes for homeschoolers
SAT and ACT exams are frequently required in college applications. Many colleges expect applicants to have taken either the regular SAT or the SAT and two subject SATs (called SAT II's). For homeschooled students that lack grades or test scores, these exams may be more important than they are for other students.
You can register for the SAT directly online. The SAT code for all homeschoolers is 970000, but it should appear as New York if you register in New York.
The PSAT can be taken online, or you can contact a local school and register to take it there. I recommend telephoning a local private school (more likely to have an available seat) about a week after classes begin in September. Ask to speak to the testing coordinator to see if your child can take the PSAT there. For The New York State code for the PSAT is 993399. Using this code, the results will be sent to your home.
Free practice tests for PSAT and SAT
SAT practice exams free online
SAT math prep from Kahn Academy (free)
800+ SAT Practice Questions for 2025 by Princeton Review
Some people find the ACT exam simpler, more like the standardized achievement tests typical of annual assessments. Others find it more challenging because it contains a science component. Some students practice both the ACT and SAT to see if they do better with one.
The ACT code is 969-999. For the PLAN (pre-ACT), the code is 979-999.
The Official ACT Prep Guide for 2024-25 with 9 practice tests
Free online test prep for ACT, SAT and more
Regents Exams, including Diploma Equivalent
To register for a New York State Regents Exams, visit or call any local public high school with your child's NYC Student ID number, and ask to sit for the test as a walk-in. Most Regents are given in June, August and January, but not every schools will have all the tests on all the dates. For science exams, you'll have to give them a copy of the student's lab notebook, showing 20 hours of labwork, for their approval. Make sure that the head of the department for that test (or the Regents testing coordinator) knows in advance that you are taking the test, and has your address so they can send you the score. Otherwise it can take a long time to get that score.
If the school doesn't know how to handle the paperwork for a homeschooler, or how to register a homeschooler for the exam, do a quick search for the BAID (Borough Assessment Implementation Director) who serves your borough and ask them to write an email to the school.
Practice Regents exams with answers are available free online.
It is possible to obtain a high school diploma equivalent with passing grades in five Regents exams from the following list:
Regents Comprehensive Examination in English
Regents Examination in Mathematics
Regents Examination in United States History and Government
Regents Examination in science *
Regents Examination in Global History and Geography
* Only one science is required, even though five are offered: Chemistry, Physics, Earth Science, Biology, and Living Environment.
Fulfilling the Lab Requirement for High School Biology Regents
Other diploma equivalents include earning 24 college credits in specific subjects, or taking the GED. Most private colleges do not require a diploma. The exception is city and state schools, but they may accept the Letter of Completion issued by the homeschooling office as a diploma equivalent. If the student does not plan on attending college, a high school diploma equivalent may be more important.
Generally, the selection of high school biology labs varies from school to school, and requirements can change in any year. NY State has mandated four. See the NYS Core Curriculum for Living Environment (formerly Biology) for a pdf syllabus. On page 4 it states that 1200 minutes of lab experience is required. On page 21 (Appendix A) there is a laboratory checklist.
Regents Living Environment Power Pack (Barrons)
Compound Microscope with 15 prepared slides
Set of 100 Prepared Glass Slides
Alternatives for Assessments
Assessment Services: North Atlantic Regional High School in Maine and Clonlara School in Michigan are both umbrella schools. For a fee they will provide transcript and assessment services. An “umbrella school” means that can use their courses or yours (validation of outside courses may be required). Both of these schools can issue an accredited high school diploma with an official transcript (for a fee), even to students entering only for their senior year.
Note: private colleges usually do not require a high school diploma or equivalency for college entry. Instead, they ask for proof of the equivalent of four years of high school, which can be shown in a homemade transcript, along with letters of recommendation, grades or test scores from outside sources, a resume of extracurricular activities, a well written application, and an interview or portfolio submission. Homemade transcripts created by homeschoolers are widely accepted.
If tests are ineffective assessments, what is a better method? As a teacher and homeschooling parent, I know that a test score will tell me almost nothing, while just a five-minute conversation with the student can reveal an enormous amount. Noteworthy educator Deborah Meier’s book Beyond Testing: Seven Assessments of Students and Schools More Effective Than Standardized Tests agrees with the fallacy of testing. Meier lists seven methods, including the following which I also recommend: student self-assessments, teacher observations of students and their work, descriptive reviews of the child, reading and math interviews with children, and reviewing a portfolio of the student’s work. Homeschoolers living in a state that requires testing must continue to test if they want to comply with the law. But we can also use these other methods to ascertain how well our kids are doing. Ask them to assess themselves. Where do they think they need to improve or get help? Where do they think they are doing well? Observe them at work. Speak to them about what they are reading and writing, about math and science. Examine a portfolio of their work gathered over a period of months, which can show improvement and change over time. We can assess teachers in similar ways: observe them at work (how connected are they with students and subjects?), ask them how they could do better and where they feel they are doing well, interview them about specific subjects or problems, and examine classroom efforts and projects over a period of time. Perhaps surprisingly, if we gave ourselves grades along with a narrative commentary, the assessments are likely to be far more accurate and informative than any test score.
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