Steve Deckard, Ed.D., Assistant Professor, Institute for Creation Research states, "One aspect of education where evolutionary theory has had a stranglehold is standardized testing.  This is especially true for standardized science achievement tests.

"These tests have been written from a secular, humanistic, and evolutionary world view. Because of this inherent bias, young people educated in evangelical Christian private or home schools which teach creation science are at a distinct disadvantage.

"This situation is changing.  Association of Christian Schools International, in cooperation with the developers of the Stanford Achievement Test series, introduced in the fall of 1995 a special Christian School Edition of the Stanford Achievement Test.

"The ACSI/SAT Christian School Edition is known as a custom-made test.  The non-core questions use a Biblical and traditional-values approach with illustrations, examples, and stories." Also included in the ACSI/SAT is a Bible Assessment subtest.  (Read more.)

Home-school families may have access to the ACSI/SAT by:

•  Testing at a ACSI-member Christian school.

•  Your support group can become an ACSI member if it has a paid administer and meets other criteria (call 800-367-0798) and can then order the tests.

Inge Cannon, of HomeSchool Transcripts, observes, "As the culture moves in the direction of secularism and away from any demonstration of Biblical values, Christians will find the gap between what they are teaching and what the tests measure to grow increasingly wider."

Inge goes on to recommend that home schoolers:

•  Take only the basic battery (reading, math, language arts) and avoid the additional tests that make up the complete battery (science, social studies, and at lower levels, the environment) if they must take a standardized achievement test.

•  Strive to change state home-school laws to reflect this option or to allow for other forms of evaluation.

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Remember that a standardized achievement test cannot measure the sum total of your child's progress.  It is only one assessment tool with limited value.

•  Measure your child's ability to recall certain facts, basic skills, and concepts common to the grade tested.

•  Compare your child's scores with other students' scores.

•  Assess your child's year-to-year development of learning, if the same test is used for several years.

•  Help you determine your child's academic strengths and weaknesses, as well as the effectiveness of your curriculum, teaching methods, or emphasis, when results are combined with your own observations.

•  Tell you if your child has achieved academically to the level of his ability.

•  Measure your child's intelligence or the many other skills and abilities not on the test.

•  Replace your own informed evaluation of your child's knowledge and skills, gained from your daily observation of his work and more thorough and frequent review questions.

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Following are the most commonly used standardized achievement tests.  For more information about each test, see the test publisher's website links below.

Check with your state or local home-school organization for local sources of tests and testing services.

1.  California Achievement Tests (CAT/5, CAT/6)

Published by CTB/McGrawHill.  California Achievement Tests, Fifth Edition (CAT/5) and TerraNova, The Second Edition

•  California Achievement Test, 1970 Edition (more demanding than recent editions) is available from Christian Liberty Academy School System. (CAT/6)

2.  Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS).  Published by Riverside Publishing.

•  ITBS and other tests and assessments available from Bob Jones University Press Testing and Evaluation.

3.  Stanford Achievement Tests (SAT), Tenth Edition.  (Not to be confused with the SAT college entrance exam.)

SAT 10 and Stanford 10 - Abbreviated Battery are now published by Pearson.

•  SAT and other tests and assessments available from Bob Jones University Press Testing and Evaluation.

•  ACSI/SAT 10 may be available from ACSI or ACSI-member schools.  (See "Standardized Tests and the Christian Worldview" above.)

Comparison of the Stanford and Iowa Achievement Tests

BJU Press notes that both tests are top-rated, nationally standardized tests that evaluate thinking, and neither is more difficult than the other.

•  Stanford evaluates listening skills through grade 8; Iowa through grade 2.

•  Stanford tests are administered untimed; Iowa tests are timed.

4.  Personalized Achievement Summary System (PASS) Tests

The PASS Test was developed specifically for home schoolers.  As other achievement tests, it estimates student achievement in the subjects of reading, language, and math.

Parents may administer this untimed test in their own home.  A pretest places your child in the correct test level.

•  Available from Hewitt Homeschooling Resources.

5.  Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills, TerraNova (CTBS).  Now called TerraNova CTBS.  Published by CTB/McGrawHill.

•  Available from The Sycamore Tree.

6.  Metropolitan Achievement Tests, Eighth Edition (MAT 8).  Previously published by Harcourt Assessment (see note in #3 above).

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