Tennessee
New State Tests
In an effort to raise the academic bar for all high school students and add accountability for students’ academic performance, the Tennessee Department of Education has adopted a new testing proposal for end-of-course tests in certain subjects. The 10 subjects to be tested are as follows: Math Foundations II (also for Math for Technology I students), Algebra I (also for Math for Technology II students), Geometry, Algebra II, Physical Science, Biology (also for Biology for Technology students), Chemistry, English I, English II, and United States History.
Starting with entering freshmen in the 2001–02 school year, public school students must pass three of these tests—English II, Algebra I, and Biology—before graduation to earn a high school diploma. This testing requirement for graduation is known as the Gateway Testing Initiative. (This has nothing to do with Gateway Christian School in Memphis, a church-related school in which many children enroll while being taught at home.)
According to the Department of Education, these tests will also be required of students in home schools upon completion of the subjects being tested. Some end-of-course tests in the areas of Algebra I, Algebra II, Geometry, and Math for Technology I presently administered to public school students are attempted to be imposed on home school students as well. HSLDA is of the opinion that these end-of-course tests are not authorized by state law governing home schools. We have previously expressed this opinion to both the Department of Education and our member families who have been contacted by local school districts insisting that home school students take these tests.
Home schools in Tennessee are governed exclusively by the provisions of § 49-6-3050 of Tennessee Code Annotated. This statute requires home school students who are also associated with a church-related school to be administered in grades 9–12 “an annual standardized achievement test or the Sanders Model of value-added assessment, whichever is in use by that LEA [Local Education Agency] and is sanctioned by the state board of education.” Further relating to such students, the law requires parents to “adhere to the same program of the Sanders Model of value-added assessment, or other standardized achievement testing in use in the local education agency which the child would otherwise attend.”
Provisions of this statute relating to home school students who are not associated with a church-related school require that these students be administered “the same state board approved secure standardized test required of public school students in grades five (5), seven (7) and nine (9) . . .” Home school students not associated with a church-related school are not required to take the Sanders Model of value-added assessment. Clearly, the tests contemplated by § 49-6-3050 for all home school students are standardized achievement tests, not any end-of-course tests.
These end-of-course tests are text-specific according to the instruction received by public school students in Tennessee. Not only does Tennessee law not require home school students to participate in end-of-course tests, but such text-specific tests are fundamentally unfair, and, in our opinion, unconstitutional. Parents of students in home schools are free to choose any curriculum they deem appropriate for their children, and there is a wide variety of choices available and being utilized in home schools. To require students to be tested on material in which they have not been instructed is obviously unfair and was so held by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in the 1981 case of Debra P. v. Turlington, 644 F.2d 397. In that case, the court ruled that such tests violate the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the United States Constitution.
According to the information furnished by the Department of Education, the new end-of-course tests will be used over a period of three years to develop part of the Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System. Thus, it appears that the state may take the position in future years that these end-of-course tests are part of the Sanders Model of Value-Added Assessment required for certain home school students. However, it remains to be seen whether these tests will meet the standardized achievement test requirements described in the current home school law.
Home School Legal Defense Association’s advice to its member families remains the same—that home school students are not required to take any end-of-course tests now or in the future.
— Dewitt T. Black
