Standardized Testing... To Do or Not To Do?

Since last year was our first year homeschooling (4th Grade), I was super-paranoid about making sure we had our testing done for state requirements (WA). I found someone who did home testing (Washington Homeschool Organization lists available testers on their webpage). She was a certified teacher & also homeschooled. She just looked at our work from the year & compared it to our state standards & then wrote up a summary of her findings & what we could work on. It was pretty insightful. Then, I heard from a friend that the co-op (we joined this year) had someone putting together the Stanford Achievement Test for homeschool families, so we did that as well. I plan on doing it again this year. A week or two before testing, I try to start reviewing subjects (used the SAT’s practice booklet last year). Testing is the first week of June for two days, so that’s kind of our end of the school year’s last hurrah.