Aren't the official tests already produced by private organizations? That's what I always thought... I'm asking because we're at that point now, trying to decide how to proceed. (We're considering CLEP.)
I believe you are right, but, to my knowledge it is not possible to get a state high school diploma without doing one of two things:
1) Graduate from high school.
2) Pass the GED which students are forbidden to take until they are 16 in most states ( to my knowledge), and in some states, 18.
Without a GED, getting government scholarship aid ( and even private ) is very difficult.
Also, as an employer, I simply could not depend on a high school diploma as any indication that the student could even read. I wasted far, far, too much time interview people who could not do the job because they could not speak standard English, or read and write well enough.
I resorted to insisting on at least some community college on the resume before asking a person in for an interview. The job absolutely does **not** need a community college level education. All that is needed is basic literacy and reasonable command of English, ( not even math), but other than seeing community college on the resume I simply could not tell of the person could read well enough to do the job.
As an employer, I would like to see a private company issue a certified transcript that a person was literate, and could speak and write English, to a certain grade level, and abandon having to rely on seeing community college on the resume.
By the way, I once hired a homeschooler ( part-time) who was only 14. She was absolutely terrific in the job! She went on to get another job with a larger office, and now is making a career, with an **excellent** salary in being an office manager of a very large health clinic. She never went to college. She never graduated from high school or took the GED. So far, for her there has been no need.
All official tests are written by private organizations. Some of the state tests for lower grades - not end of course - are frequently written with significant state input. Tests such as the Stanford, Iowa, SAT/ACT's are not only professionally written, but are standardized to a specific age group and the testing data is available for anyone who wishes to analyze the data construct.
CLEP is written by the same folks who handle AP's and SAT's. It is a good option for kids with broad background knowledge, especially in the liberal arts and basic sciences. As with AP's, it is up to the colleges to decide how the tests are used within their organization. Thankfully, my daughter was able through AP's to satisfy her history, English, and cross-curricular requirements and is entering her college 3 credits shy of a second semester sophomore. She actually satisfied her basic science and math requirements, but is choosing to retake just to make sure she has the foundation the school requires.
The GED is written by the American Council of Education, which is an organization of about 2000 colleges and universities. The only problem with GED's is the fraud that is prevalent. There are quite a few organizations that claim to represent the ACE, and offer an on-line version of the GED, and that is a huge red flag. Unfortunately, I know about a dozen or so kids that after bragging how easy the GED was, found out they were defrauded and a couple of them just gave up in disgust and never completed the GED program or earned a diploma.