Many of you have recently received a letter from your local public school regarding required testing. You are required to test your child who is in 3rd, 5th, 8th, or 10th grade; however, you are not required to bring them to the school for testing. You may arrange, at your own expense, for privately administered testing with an equivalent norm-referenced test.

Many support groups in Hawaii provide Stanford or IOWA testing for their members. If you are not a member of a group that provides testing, there are other alternatives to the school administered test. The California Achievement Test and the PASS test can be administered by a parent in their home. Stanford or IOWA testing can be adminstered by a parent with a degree, providing that they become certified as a tester and that 2 or more non-relatives be tested along with their own children.

Please note that the school administered test contains both a norm-referenced portion and a standards-based portion. Unless you have been teaching strictly by the Hawaii State standards, your child will not be prepared for the standards-based portion. It is up to the school to determine if your child would be allowed to only take the norm-referenced portion.

If your child has been moved up or down by you (the parent), please note that the school will only test the level based on their chronological age; they will not accept a grade assigned by anyone other than a public or private charter school.

For definition: a norm-referenced test is designed to compare your student’s scores with other students’ scores, exposing academic strengths and weaknesses. These tests evaluate how well the student responds to questions related to concepts commonly taught at the test grade level. By contrast, a standards-based test targets specific content that was taught in specific subjects, using specific benchmarks established by the Hawaii Department of Education.