Testing & Evaluation FAQs

For our purposes, we have defined “private school” as three or more families meeting at least four days a week for regular academic instruction at a non-residential location. Charter schools and online publicly funded schools are considered public schools for contractual reasons.

BJU Press Testing & Evaluation will share student information with the publisher for completion of scoring services but will not make this information available to other organizations. Further information on how we handle information is available in our privacy policy.

Test administrators do not need to be approved through BJU Press to administer testing for the purchase or service package. However, test administrators must still meet publisher requirements:

• For the Iowa Assessments™, the publisher prefers but does not require a bachelor’s degree. Those with a high school diploma or GED (or higher) may administer the test.
• For the Stanford 10, a bachelor’s degree is required for test administrator approval, in addition to watching a short video.

The school will be required to sign a user agreement confirming that all teachers who will administer the tests are qualified according to these guidelines.

The publishers authorize us to provide tests to private schools under certain guidelines:

• For the Iowa Assessments™, the school’s total K5–grade 12 student enrollment must be 2,999 or less.
  • For contractual reasons, we cannot offer the Iowa Assessments to Catholic and Seventh Day Adventist schools with an enrollment of more than 99 students.*
  • We are also unable to offer the Iowa Assessments Form E in the following areas: Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Croatia, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kosovo, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Montenegro, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Slovenia, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Yemen.

There are also specific restrictions for some products in the United States. See specific products for details.

• For the Stanford tests, the publisher has no enrollment limit for private schools within the United States. The publisher does limit overseas private schools to a K5–grade 12 maximum enrollment of 500.
• For contractual reasons, public schools, including charter schools and online publicly funded schools, may not order testing through BJU Press.

*Please contact us for possible exceptions.

Generally, the test level should correspond to the current grade level of the students’ core subjects—reading, language, and math. Please refer to inside pages of the Checklist & Guidelines to see which test you should order for the specific time of year you are testing.

While not specifically designed for grade placement, standardized achievement and/or abilities tests can help schools to make decisions in school admission and grade placement.

For the Iowa Assessments™:

• One purple Building Identification sheet is required for the school.
• One blue Grade/Class Identification sheet is required for each grade or class.

For the Stanford 10:

• One purple SSID (Scoring Service Identification) sheet is required per grade or class.

We recommend that your school order in the fall of the school year, as soon as your enrollment is determined. Allow at least three weeks before testing when you place your order. This should allow time for processing and shipping, as well as time for your school to review the materials upon arrival.

Keep in mind that materials cannot ship until the user agreement is signed.

Testing is available year-round. To receive spring results, postmark tests by July 31. Tests postmarked after August 1 receive fall results (compared against students starting a grade). Because results can take 20 business days to process after materials arrive in our office, plan your test date with any goals or reporting deadlines in mind.

Educated guesses can be appropriate. Random guessing lessens the clarity of the scores, making it difficult to distinguish between weak areas (many wrong answers) and areas not yet covered (questions left unanswered). Please be aware of how this can impact your results.

Students with diagnosed disabilities may qualify for certain accommodations during testing. Generally, a student’s IEP will list the appropriate modifications. For further details, see the testing accommodations info from the publisher, or call us at 800.845.5731.

• All schools should return write-in booklets and answer documents by an insured and traceable method (FedEx, UPS, USPS insured mail, or other private service). When losses or damages occur, claims may be handled more easily through FedEx or UPS than USPS.
• Multiple shipments may be combined into one when returned.
• The service package, test booklets, directions, answer documents, and signed student roster should be returned, whether used or unused, within 21 days of the test date.

In rare cases, delivery services may claim that they “do not insure paper.” However, most of them do insure stocks, bonds, event tickets, and other valuable documents. Testing materials are nationally standardized tests and are therefore valuable documents. If you run into this problem, please present this letter to your shipping provider.

In your scoring worksheet, you chose a reports manager who will be responsible for creating reports for your school. The best introduction for doing this is in the video that can be found on the Scoring page.

• Your scoring worksheet is missing or incomplete.
• Your building or grade/class identification sheets are missing or incomplete.
• Key information is absent from answer documents or write-in student booklets.
• Your school waits to create results reports when they are available. (The reports manager will receive notification when reports can be created.)