Thinking About Rescheduling Testing?

You could reschedule testing, but do you want to? Do you have to? Why would you?

The reason for asking seems obvious. The coronavirus!

One suggested option circulating among home schoolers is, if your examiner has canceled your exam, simply ask your examiner to reschedule. The problem with this suggestion is that any rescheduled date must be, and remain, tentative, if it’s on-site with the examiner physically present.  We hope that by June or July we will be well past the stay at home mandate. We hope that social distancing standards will be greatly relaxed, maybe by end of summer, just a thought, but who knows?

What about so-called online solutions? It’s been reported that, “The Oregon Department of Education is aware that  some testers are looking into online solutions. ODE will be reviewing the rules whether tests proctored from a distance are prohibited or not.” This is second-hand information and whether true or not, it raises important questions.  

First about the term “proctor.” The word “proctor” does not appear in the home school rules. There must however according to the rules, be an examiner who is both neutral and qualified.

A little history: Relative to home schooling, the Department’s, the ESD’s, and your authority to act are regulated by statute and administrative rules. The statute and rules that currently regulate home schooling in Oregon were written and adapted around 1987. You will not find anything in them about “tests proctored from a distance” for a simple reason. The technology for such an option wasn’t in use yet and wouldn’t be for several years.  

The rules clearly state that there must be an examiner and that the examiner must neutral and qualified.

For an examiner to be “neutral” by rule definition, the examiner is an individual selected by the parent or guardian of the child to be taught at home who has no relationship by bloodline or marriage to the child.

To be “qualified” by rule definition, means the examiner meets one of five standards (has a teaching credential, has taken a graduate level class in tests and measurement, to name two possibilities).

• What about tests obtained through testing organizations and then given by parents? Parents aren’t neutral. This setting does not satisfy state testing requirements.

• What about online tests like the Stanford 10?  This is unlikely unless the examiner, if there is one, is qualified by one of the standards set forth in the rules.
   
• What about Online Smarter Balanced Tests used with Oregon at home public school students? This test is not on the list of approved tests, by rule, and not acceptable.
   
• What about Oregon State-wide Assessments? At one time, these tests were written into the administrative rules as an acceptable tests until we the attorney general removed them because they weren’t nationally normed. These tests are also not acceptable.
  

So what’s left? According to the list, nationally-normed achievement tests and tests given by neutral and qualified examiners.

One take-away from this is that we should all work within the framework of the rules as they are currently written. The rules may or may not reflect current education trends and/or best practices. Changes may be in order. Because the statute regulates the rules, changing the statute will be a first step prior to making lasting changes to the rules.  

A temporary change in which the deadline to complete testing is extended for this year is in a different category. Now is not the time to make sweeping, permanent changes. But then, I don’t think that’s what the Oregon Department of Education has in mind.

Just my thoughts.    

Thanks for reading!

Curt Bumcrot, MRE

We’re currently signing up students to participate in remote group testing. Our first group test date is May 8. The registration deadline is April 29th. If you’re interested in signing up, click here  for more information. Feel free to call (503-650-5282) or email info@basicskills.net if you have additional questions.