Thanks to the reader who sent me this article about the advent of standardized testing in the public schools of New Bedford, Massachusetts.
Many of the worst tendencies of corporate reform are exemplified right here in this article.
First, the assumption that standardized tests will tell us what we need to know about individual children (are they meeting the norm that someone at Pearson or McGraw Hill selected?).
Second, the assumption that teachers’ professional judgment is inadequate and must be replaced by an off-the-shelf test.
Third, the assumption that what is measured matters most.
Fourth, the assumption that children at the age of 5 should be assessed with standardized tests rather than by experienced teachers.
Fifth, the assumption that the data derived from these these tests can be entered into a database that will shape the judgment about this child for the rest of his school days.
Please add your suggestion for points I have not thought of at this moment.
Diane
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Your fifth point is one of the most appalling. I teach Advanced Placement at the high school level. I hate that my school limits the number of AP courses a student may take and many courses had barriers to student enrollment. In my professional experience, work ethic is a far greater predictor of student success than previous standardized test scores. It frightens me that students enrolled in kindergarten are going to be tracked and labeled! If a first grade teacher believes a student is “behind” because of these tests, will they believe the student can catch up? Experiences teachers will know to ignore the score and hold the student to the same standards. A less experienced teacher (perhaps one who got five weeks training in the summer) might believe the scores and feel ok with that student remaining “behind.” I’ve seen students change from totally uninterested in school in 10th grade to top students in 12th grade. How could a standardized test in kindergarten have any validity or predictive power. Parents should be up in arms about their five year-olds being tracked and labeled by the state!
I’m not seeing anything in the article about standardized tests. A uniform method of recording observations and sharing those observations with other teachers is a good and necessary thing. I’d like to see the teachers recording observations much more frequently than 3 times a year, though. We have the tools to do it at least weekly. We must use smart teaching tools and share information.
They assess the effects of educational “reforms” on standardized test scores, but make no effort to assess their other effects — on student enjoyment of learning or enthusiasm for school, on their curiousity or skepticism, on their stress and anxiety levels, on teacher morale and the allure of the teaching profession to talented people, on the values the kids are learning, etc.
What good is the data if it doesn’t assess the full effects? It’s like taking a drug without having any idea of what the side effects are.
Extended rant here.
What am I missing? Why is all of the reforms from Obama considered “Corp. reform”? These reforms come from Marc Tucker(the progressive) and has been in the works for YEARS.
Republicans USED to resist these efforts but for some reason, abandon their principles for the RttT cash.
This isn’t about Corp reform efforts (although many are following what their masters expect of them) this is about creating a work-force of worker bees for the global economy.
Look at the agreement signed between Bill Gates (the progressive) and UNESCO
Look at the congressional testimony on Marc Tucker from YEARS ago and how he’s now finally able to carry out his agenda courtesy Obama/Duncan: http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/OtherPDFs/Hyde_Cuddy_testimony.pdf
I agree with Dan. The article itself doesn’t say anything about standardized tests, just a systematic method of observations.
Of course, after reading the PKA assessment plan, they are introducing a series of different standardized tests. While relying on teacher’s assessments is a pretty flawed method- there is no standardized test that gives reliable information about individuals. That’s why none of the test based procedures works for increasing individual students… although it can give good data on the teachers and the neighborhood in aggregate.
I wonder when they are going to learn that. Or is that what the real reasoning is behind these tests?
Diane,
The subject of Kindergarten Readiness came up in our state association’s magazine this month:
http://www.oregoned.org/site/apps/nlnet/content.aspx?c=9dKKKYMDH&b=8157719&ct=11872433
I understand your concern about testing these kids, but what I got out of this article was:
1) We’ve been doing surveys of Kindergartners that are time consuming for teachers, and tend to be subjective, and
2) Too many kids are coming into Kindergarten ill-prepared to learn.
With budgets being cut, we have more kids in Kindergarten classes now, and less aide time to assist the teacher. I predict these factors will have an impact on their progress that may extend through elementary school. Is it not a good idea to get a clear picture of their skills so that we may plan for the future?
What’s still missing in the debate is that all these assessments are used to find deficits or flaws in students. There isn’t positive correlation on remediating a weakness as much as developing ones strengths. Another big problem in education is this idea that explicit teaching of strategies is a help. As a teacher of English to those with other languages, I know that learning English comes from implicit language acquisition not explicit teaching of grammar or focusing on errors students make in English. Language also needs to be comprehensible so giving people reading material over their head and telling them to use strategies to figure out what is going on is a lot of work that interferes with comprehension. Students shouldn’t be expected to be the same and there are many regional differences too. I think the true issue here is the power elite who is white are scared of a minority majority of youth who are not. The purpose is to put the minority in their place and keep the white minority majority in power.
Dan and lavrans123 are correct. This has nothing to do with standardized tests. Diane, can you take another look at this as I think you are misunderstanding what New Bedford is proposing to do.
The State of Maryland has been doing the same thing New Bedford, MA is proposing to do. Maryland has been doing this for more than 10 years and they have achieved incredible increases in kindergarten readiness.
I encourage readers to go to the following link:
http://www.readyatfive.org/raf/school-readiness-data/school-readiness.html
Click on “Getting Ready 2012” to see the progress Maryland has made.
A number of other states have been doing this for years and a larger number are just getting underway with this.
The thing that is most ironic is that this approach is teacher-centric, parent-centric, and student-centric. Teachers do the assessment by observation. Of course there is some training that teachers must undergo but it is minimal – the system relies on the knowledge and professionalism of teachers ! Kids don’t take tests or get quizzed. Parents and teachers discuss the results during conferences and talk about what each can do to help.
Most of the states that have chosen to do this have teachers make observations beyond the cognitive domain. These include teacher assessments of each child’s motor abilities, emotional and social readiness, etc. This approach has been used to help with early diagnosis of learning disabilities and to get teachers, children and families the assistance they need to work with these.
To my knowledge, all of the states that do these kinds of assessments use them to inform teachers adn parents and to help kids catch up if they are starting kindergarten at a level far below what is actually a fairly low standard to qualify as “ready”.
The outcomes for kids and families that Maryland has been able to drive have been the most impressive, especially for disadvantaged familes and kids. Maryland is using this information to close the achievement gap as early as they can and they (and others states like them) should be congratulated for doing this.
You are right about the standardized testing. The goal here is standardizing assessment.
But I nonetheless find testing of kindergarten children objectionable, specifically as described in this article, because the purpose is NOT to trust the professional judgement of teachers. If professionals can’t be trusted, they are no longer professionals. Don’t you think that kindergarten teachers are currently observing their students and taking notes on their development and their needs?
Furthermore, the assessment, the article says, is about their academic competence, and will be entered into a data base.
Frankly, I prefer to let the five year olds play and learn social skills and learn how to listen and share and play-act and finger paint and make things out of clay and make up stories and sing and do fun things.
We have lost sight of what’s right for children their age.
Diane
I don’t know why you say the purpose of these assessment is not to trust the professional judgement of teachers.
If the professional judgement of teachers were not trusted then:
…school administrators would do the assessments…
…or outside professionals would do the assessments…
…or parents of the children involved would do the assessments…
…or children would interact with an iPad and assess themselves…
But, in the case of the article (New Bedford) and in the cases I know of from the states doing this, they are completely RELIANT on the professional judgement of teachers.
Systematizing the assessment is organizing it in a way to make sure it translates the same way from classroom to classroom and school to school. It’s also important so that all involved can see if progress is being made against the ultimate goal of all children being ready for kindergarten.
The article is unclear about whether the kindergarten assessment is completely focused on academics. In one section it says children will be assessed against developmental milestones – implying that it is more broad-based than academics. Later in the article it says future teachers can see how assessed students are doing academically. So, again, unclear.
If kindergartners are only being assessed on academics, I agree with you that that is inappropriate for children that age. I will follow-up and find out.
If you get a chance you should read about how Maryland has done their kindergarten assessments. Full trust in teacher assessments, broad-based (not academically-focused), over ten years of history, and outstanding results especially for disadvantaged children.
The article says that the reason for introducing and standardizing the assessments of kindergarten children is that up until now, the assessments relied completely on the judgment of teachers.
This is the quote: “”There is not (right now) an organized way of doing this. It’s basically at the professional judgment of the teachers,” said Azar.”
He then goes on to say that instead of relying on “the professional judgment of the teachers,” he chooses this new path:
“What we want to do is make it more systematic and make it more consistent from kindergarten classroom to kindergarten classroom and from school to school.”
Furthermore, this is a data-gathering operation, as the data about the five-year-olds will be put into the system’s online database:
“The data a teacher capture about a student’s learning will be entered into an online database, which allows the next teacher who gets that student to easily see how the student was doing academically, said Azar.”
Maybe it is just me, but I think that children this young need to be children. There is plenty of time to build a database about them as they start to build academic skills. At the age of 5, they should be doing things that are hard to measure and enter into a database.
Diane
I think it all depends upon if/how the results are used. If the results are immediately available and can be used to create appropriate interventions before the kid is so far behind that they qualify for Special Education, maybe not an awful thing. I do like the results being available electronically and that they’ll follow the kid through the system. This would make it easier for teachers to view information for their class as a whole and could solve the problem caused by records arriving at a new school weeks after the student does.
Diane is completely right here. These assessments may not be bubble tests, but they are standardized, and make no mistake, if they aren’t already high stakes, they will be soon. We want kindergarten teachers worried that their job depends on kids’ scores on these? Really?
I was appalled to find out that my preschooler in Chicago (birthplace of many a terrible reform idea) could be subjected to exactly this form of “readiness test.” And it’s not new either: http://www.catalyst-chicago.org/notebook/2010/04/06/ready-kindergarten-new-tool-will-gauge-childrens-school-readiness.
I agree with Rachel. There is nothing wrong with an “observation-based” checklist as indicated in the article if it is used to guide the teacher rather than track the students. If the schools use it to create a group of “winners” and “losers” then it would be misused. Also, the creators of the checklist should have a “beta period” when they get feedback from teachers about what is reasonable for the average child to be successful in 1st grade, rather than setting an arbitrary standard and labeling some kids “failing”.
Although, unfortunately, given the current climate, misuse is more likely than not.
I taught Early Childhood (ages 3-5) Special Ed. students for 13 years. Prior to that, I taught Kindergarten, &, for two summers, I taught a Developmental K Program, which I had developed (& the district funded), to further prepare transitioning students from the E.C. SpEd. In all those years, there were assessments & checklists available for us to
observe & chart progress & growth. Not to mention (gasp!) time allotted for play & socialization, during which teachers jotted notes about student behaviors (& shared them w/their parents).
Never once did I hear either teachers or parents state that they needed “standardized” instruments: the tools were available, teachers recorded observations of students, & everything was just fine & dandy.
I belong to a online special education group, & we recently parsed a new reading inventory (produced by–you guessed it!–Pearson) that has reinvented the wheel & taken the IRI (Informal Reading Inventory–a wonderful, useful, quick tool) to new, elongated, torturous lengths. And, we asked, WHY? WHY does the wheel have to be reinvented when we have something that already works? KA-CHING! As if Pearson doesn’t ALREADY make enough money. And–oh, sorry, we forgot–it is ONLY the professional opinion of a group of TEACHERS (& other educators–SLPs, college/ university professors, etc.) that we already HAVE the diagnostic tools we need to best help our children.
Finally, with regard to the aforementioned, did I read that the assessments would be online? Do they mean–seriously–that the K kids will be doing the assessments online? If so, that is nothing less than the height of absurdity!
Of course I smell a rat. Reinventing assessments to be used for kindergarteners will end up to being used for entirely different purposes–rather, they’ll be TEACHER assessments, once again, data collection used for firing teachers & for privatizing their schools.