NEW MEXICO
Achievement Test Guidelines Revised
The State Department of Education is in the process of revising its October 14, 1993, memorandum to District Superintendents, Directors of Instruction, Testing Coordinators, and Interested Parties regarding home school achievement test guidelines. The memorandum will come from Alan D. Morgan, State Superintendent of Public Instruction. The proposed changes have been circulated to various individuals for comment. It is unlikely, however, that the revised home school achievement test guidelines will be significantly altered as a result of soliciting public comment.
There are significant changes to the testing guidelines. First, an additional option for testing has been provided to home schoolers. The "home school operator" may elect to use the Bob Jones University Press testing service instead of testing their students through the local school district. The operator may request the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, Form 11. It then becomes the home school operator's responsibility to make the arrangements to pay for this service and provide for the testing. Additionally, the home school operator will be responsible for sending copies of the student's score report to the Assessment and Evaluation Unit at the New Mexico Department of Education, and as well as verification of test completion to the local school district office. Any home school operator who desires to avail himself of this option must notify the school district by January 15.
The second change in the guidelines involves a new statement to the local school district by the department of education indicating that if a home schooler does not provide for testing under the guidelines, the school district should consider the family as a case of truancy, and pursue the matter as they would any other truant.
Thirdly, the provision in the guidelines which required the local school district to cooperate with home schoolers in arranging the test site and dates has been deleted.
Finally, it appears that local school districts are being encouraged to choose the public school as the administration site for home school student's standardized achievement testing. The new guidelines recommend that no fee be assessed for home school students tested at the school district. However, administration of testing off-campus is to be considered "special administration" and the school district "may wish to establish policy" to require a fee for off-campus testing.
HSLDA's opinion regarding the new testing provisions is that the additional option for testing, i.e. the Bob Jones testing services, is good. However, designating off-campus testing as "special administration" is bad. The stated intent of the State Department of Education's testing guidelines is, among other things, to provide an optimum testing environment for home school students. That optimum testing environment is not in the public schools. It is certainly probable that with the encouragement to charge testing fees for off-campus testing, there will be a strong desire on the part of the public school to test home school students at the school site.
Since the guidelines no longer require the local school district to cooperate with the home schoolers in establishing the locations and dates of testing, it will be interesting to see whether there will be efforts now to bully home schoolers into on-site testing.
Although these guideline revisions are being heralded as "improvements," encouraging the local school district to prosecute families who do not comply with the testing guidelines has an ominously chilling effect.
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