FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions: Testing 
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FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions: Testing
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The DoE accepts the SAT, but not the PSAT for assessment. For more information on PSAT and SAT, see About College: PSAT, SAT, and SAT II.
You are supposed to contact your zoned school directly, and not the central homeschooling office. You can use the closest or most convenient school, even if it is not your zoned school, just call the school's secretary or testing coordinator to set it up.
See the New York State Testing Page 2009-2010.
Your local homeschooling liaison, the person to whom you send your IHIP and quarterly reports, can direct you to city-wide tests offered in the public school, such as standard math and reading exams and Regents exams in high school. Most homeschoolers prefer to test their kids at home, and many choose to purchase the P.A.S.S. test (Personalized Achievement Summary System for Grades 3 through 8), available at Hewitt Homeschooling Resources, (360) 835-8708. The P.A.S.S. test is an untimed test that a parent can legally administer to their child. It only goes up to grade eight.
After that, the most popular choice is the C.A.T. (California Achievement Test). This is available at Thurber's Educational Assessments, (919) 967-5282.
Another test that is often used is the I.T.B.S. (Iowa Test of Basic Skills), available for grades 3 - 12. Unfortunately, Bob Jones University has made it more difficult to purchase this test, requiring proof of teacher's certification or proof of a college degree from the purchaser. For the Iowa test contact Bob Jones University, (800) 845-5731.
These tests can be used for year-end assessments instead of a narrative assessment (usually in the form of a written paragraph, a report card, or a teacher's statement or peer review statement).
College boards are another test that most high school students, who are aiming at college, study for. To find out about the SAT exam go to College Board - SAT Registration. You can register for the SAT online, but you must register at a local school to take the PSAT (Preliminary SAT). I recommend calling a local private school right after Labor Day or soon after the school opens, since the exam is usually adminstered in early to mid-October. In fall 2005 my son needed to bring a check made out to the school (for a small fee, $12), along with his calculator and two #2 pencils. You child will need to know the state homeschool code so that the test results are sent to your home and not to the school or test location. Currently the homeschool code for New York State is 993399. For other states' codes, see PSAT Homeschool Codes.
AP (Advanced Placement) and CLEP (College-Level Examination Program®) tests can earn college credits if the score is high enough. See information on AP and information on CLEP.
Number 2 offers free online test preparation courses.
Testing is very controversial. More and more public schools are adopting testing standards, and more and more teachers are forced to "teach to the test." Recent newspaper headlines have included articles about private schools boycotting these tests because they steal time away from a better educational experience. Some homeschooling parents boycott the testing requirements. (I am not suggesting that you do this, merely stating a fact.) Some colleges no longer look at test scores when selecting their incoming students, and more and more colleges make test scores a lower priority. For more information on testing, check out FairTest, The National Center for Fair & Open Testing.
One parent registered her kids to take the nys math and science tests at a school outside of their district because her daughter had friends there and it was near grandpa's house. If you do choose to test in the NYC school system, there's nothing in the regulations that says it has to be done in your local school. This can be arranged over the phone. When you call the school, have ready your child's name, date of birth, and the NYC student ID number that the homeschool office assigns.
See our page on Grade Levels, Standards and Benchmarks for New York City Board of Ed. Standards and New York State Education Dept. Standards for all grades.
Mandatory tests (every other year from grades 4-8 and every year in grades 9-12) can be taken at home or in the public schools. Please see the FAQ on What about Testing. As for preparing for these tests, you really don't need to. General knowledge is all that is expected. BUT, you can certainly read the test before you give it to your child. You can pull out any new vocabulary words from the test and teach them to your chilld by using them in conversation, playing games with the new words, making sentences with them, etc. Teaching a child before a test is not cheating. So long as you don't give a child an answer during a test, and so long as you don't change one of your child's answers on the test, you are not cheating. Another way of using a test as a teaching tool is to go over it afterwards with your child. Ask your kid which were the hard parts and which were the easy parts, and teach them what they didn't know. Leave the wrong answers the way they were written, but use the test as a teaching tool. Next year the child will do better on the test, but, more importantly, you will know exactly why your child's "study skills" section tested at the 53rd percentile, while other subjects tested above the 75th percentile, only if you go over it together. Perhaps your kid is a whiz at doing internet research, but doesn't know how to read a library card catalog. That would certainly explain the drop in the score in the “study skills” area, while giving you the educational opportunity to teach your child how to read a library card catalog. Then, when you get the test results, the drop in one area won't alarm you because you will understand it and, in fact, probably already have remedied it.
Generally, the selection of high school biology labs varies from school to school, and requirements seem to change every year. NY State has mandated four for the current year. Go to the Dept. of Ed. website, Core Curriculum - Science and click on Living Environment (which is what they are calling Biology now) to get, in pdf form, the "syllabus" for the Living Environment . On p. 8 of the curriculum it states that students need 1200 minutes of lab experience. The list of required skills is on p. 25 of this syllabus.
For supplies, see Science Kits & Supplies on my Science Resources page. Try Carolina Biological, or Home Science Tools. Be careful when ordering. Make sure you are getting materials for one student and not for one classroom.
Your child does not have to take these tests! Many district liaisons mail out the dates of mandatory citywide tests, as a service for homeschoolers who want to take these tests. Any homeschooler who qualifies (they often have to be the right age or grade level) may request to take a citywide test, or a Regents exam, at a public school when these tests are offered. The citywide tests are mandatory only for public schooled children. Homeschooling regulations differ from public school policy. Tests are not mandatory until fourth through eighth grade, and then only every other year (so a child might test in fifth grade, and then in seventh), and then every year from ninth - twelfth grade. When it is time for your daughter to take her first mandatory assessment exam (a standard achievement test) in fifth grade, you can administer it yourself. She can take the P. A. S. S. exam at her own kitchen table, untimed, without the distraction and stress of the public school environment. For more information, see FAQ: What about testing?
Here are the five required Regents exams as stated in the law:
* Only one science is required, even though five are offered: Chemistry, Physics, Earth Science, Biology, and Living Environment.
To see past Regents exams (and the answers), go to www.nysedregents.org.
Comments from a homeschooling parent whose daughter took the Biology Regents exam (at the Bronx High School of Science, 6/05):
"To arrange to take the test, I contacted the local homeschooling liaison in our district to whom we send our paperwork. You can choose any local public high school where you can take the test. The test is given in Jan, June, and Aug. Check out the Dept of Ed website for the dates or ask your local liaison. When you take the test, make sure you have your OSIS number. This is the ID number that all public school students are given. Your district liaison will give you this number. If you do not have an OSIS, you will have a tough time getting your score. (I went through this experience and it was not fun.) You should have your score within a week. Also make sure that the head of the department that you are taking the test from knows you are coming ahead of time to take the test. He should also have your address so they can send you the score. If you wait for your district liaison to send you the score, you will wait months for it."