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Friday, January 13, 2017

Test scores might make zero difference and tell you nothing

Parenting multiple children would be immensely easier if they were all exactly alike.

Alas, they are all different, sometimes vastly different, and what works for one doesn't work for the others.

We got G's AP scores back, and he was accepted into the program.  His score on the test was higher than N's score (all 3 times she took it).

I don't think it will make one bean's worth of difference in school choice for him unless his personality undergoes a dramatic change in the next two years or someone comes up with a cure for OCD.  The small middle school that is close to home will likely be the best fit.

Of course, that assumes that he doesn't continue to develop more and weirder OCD symptoms that interrupt his ability to function in a public school setting.  Or any school setting.

(I will homeschool him if I have to but, given how he and I butt heads, I really, really, REALLY hope I don't have to.)

A part of me is not surprised by G's score, although I think that I hedged my feelings because I worried that his anxiety would hinder him.

It makes me wonder about the IQ test he took at age 6, which showed him as average.  Did the results of that test make me doubt his ability to do well on the AP test?

Does the gifted and talented test at age 9 make the IQ test from age 6 less valid?  Or does the IQ test from 3 years ago make the AP test from now less valid?  Or maybe the tests have no bearing on each other?

It makes me wonder how useful either test is if one told me G is average and the other that he is gifted?  What are they both actually measuring?  I consider myself a fairly intelligent person, but I'm sure I don't really know the answer to this question.

It makes me wonder why I'm spending that much time at all thinking about test scores especially since his personality and his mental health are the driving factors in many of the educational decisions I might consider making for him.

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