Annual Assessment Requirement
Florida Statutes require a private school participating in either prong of the Family Empowerment Scholarship Program, the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program or the Hope Scholarship Program to demonstrate academic accountability by annually administering or making provisions for students participating in a scholarship program to take one of the nationally norm-referenced tests identified by the Department of Education or the statewide assessments pursuant to Section 1008.22, Florida Statutes. Students with disabilities for whom standardized testing is not appropriate are exempt from this requirement.
Norm-Referenced Assessment
Below is the list of approved norm-referenced assessments and, if possible, a link to the test publisher’s website. To determine test mode, available accommodations, and how to administer one of the tests below, please contact the respective testing company directly.
- Comprehensive Testing Program (CTP)
- Curriculum Associates – i-Ready Assessments
- Educational Development Series (EDSERIES), Forms J and K
- Iowa Assessments-Core Battery, Forms E, F, and G
- Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS)-Core Battery, Forms A, B, and C
- Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS)-Complete Battery, Form C
- Iowa Tests of Educational Development® (ITED®), Form C
- Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement Third Edition, Comprehensive Form (KTEA-III)
- NWEA Measures of Academic Progress (MAP)
- Pivot INSPECT Summative Assessment
- PSAT 8/9
- PSAT 10
- PSAT/NMSQT®
- SAT
- PreACT Secure
- ACT
- Classic Learning Test (CLT3-8, CLT10, CLT)
- Thrive Academics Performance Series (Developed by Scantron Corp)
- Stanford Achievement Test, Tenth Edition (Stanford 10)
- Renaissance Star Assessments (Early Literacy, Reading, Math)
- TerraNova, Third Edition (TerraNova 3)
- TerraNova NEXT
- Edmentum Exact Path
- Wide Range Achievement Test, Fourth Edition (WRAT4) and Fifth Edition (WRAT5)
If a private school wishes to request to use another assessment test, it must provide a letter on school letterhead stating the name of the assessment test and the reasons for requesting the test. In addition, the private school or test publisher must submit appropriate documentation that demonstrates the assessment meets all of the criteria listed below.
- Norming studies that show dates of the studies, definition of the populations sampled, the procedure used to draw the samples, sample sizes, participation rates, and any weighting or smoothing procedure used to make the sample data better represent the population. Norming studies must have been conducted within the last 10 years, with 5 years being preferable.
- Internal consistency/reliability must be reported for content sub-domains (e.g., mathematics, reading) at a minimum of 0.80, and that reliability data be reported for each grade level.
- For any open-ended, constructed-response items, rater agreement information (e.g., exact rater agreement rates, intraclass correlations, or kappa coefficients) should be reported.
- The standard error of measurement and conditional standard error of measurement (at various test score levels) should also be reported.
- The test developer must include a clear description of the construct to be measured, the purpose of the test, intended interpretation of the scores/other test results, and intended test-taking population.
- Documentation must include conceptual, empirical, and theoretical evidence that the test meets its intended purposes and support the intended interpretations of test results for the intended populations.
- Documentation must include evidence that each test is aligned with rigorous content standards, and serves as an adequate measure of K-12 student achievement in core academic areas.
Requests for the use of another assessment test must be provided to the Office of Independent Education and Parental Choice in writing by September 15 each year.
Statewide Assessments
As an alternative, sections 1002.394, 1002.395 and 1002.40, Florida Statutes, allow participating private schools to offer and administer Florida's statewide assessments to all students who attend the private school in grades 3 through 10. A participating private school must submit a request in writing to the Department of Education by March 1 of each year to offer the statewide assessments in the subsequent school year.
Further information related to the statewide assessment option is available at the State Assessment Program page.
Reporting Assessment Results
Participating private schools must report all scholarship students’ scores to the parents and must also submit students' scores to the independent research organization selected by the Department of Education by August 15 each year. Please send copies of score sheets with name, testing date, and national percentile ranking to:
Dr. Bodunrin Akinrinmade
Learning Systems Institute
Florida State University
2010 Levy Avenue, Suite B 3200
Tallahassee, FL 32310
bakinrinmade@fsu.edu