A press release describes a shocking new initiative: the New York City Department of Education will pilot Pearson’s new in-the-womb test for fetuses.
The esteemed research entity and public relations firm Students Last was first to break the news.
Lighten up.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Click to access PreK_ELA_Crosswalk.pdf
Click to access PreK_ELA_Crosswalk.pdf
Let’s not laugh too hard. I posted the links above in response to Dr. Ravitch’s post called “What are we doing to the little ones?” The links take you to draft Connecticut documents relating to CCSS for preschoolers. The introduction states that the adoption of CCSS for K-12 “has naturally led to questions regarding standards for preschool and/or prekindergarten students.” The next section talks about a work group that has been charged with the task of creating comprehensive learning standards for birth to age 5.
I personally am interested in the learning standards for infants. What do you think? Should the first assessments be at 6 weeks or 3 months? We probably need both formative and summative assessments in math and language arts. Since Connecticut is launching new teacher evaluations, we should probably apply the same standards to parents and caregivers. A full 45 percent of a parent’s score should be based on the results of these assessments. If the baby naps during an assessment, we probably should wake him/her up. I’m not quite sure how to deal with the diapering issue though. Maybe Michelle Rhee or Jeb Bush have some thoughts on this.
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The sad part is, I thought this was real when I first started reading.
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Lots of clever touches in this piece. “Flanked” made me laugh. Announcements like these tend to come from officials who are “flanked” by two others.
Now there will be No Excuses by the time the child gets to preschool. There already are No Excuses, but the times will be even more excuseless, as though something had been taken away from zero.
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Thanks for the shout out, Ms. Ravitch. Your thoughtful efforts have sparked many of our satirical ones in hopes of: 1) making teachers laugh 2) pointing out the absurdities of so much of the “ed reform” movement. And you know why else we do what we do…. to keep from crying because what we do as educators is important and damn hard yet little appreciated but continually manipulated for selfish purposes by so many. Be well and know that we at Students Last are great admirers of your work and your courage.
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I shared this article and the following post on Facebook. If we, as a society, don’t care enough to make a difference, I guess we deserve what we get. As for me, I ‘ll keep squawking.
OK. So this is a joke. Unfortunately, testing students in kindergarten isn’t. Whatever happened to the research that says children develop at different rates, but eventually all get there? Research says some children are ready to read when they are four, others not until they are eight. That is NORMAL development. Those who aren’t ready to read by age five now are pulled out of class to ‘Catch them up’. Think about it. They are removed from the activities their friend are involved in, to force them to do something they are not yet ready to do, but that they will be ready to do at an age that is normal for them. Why are people who know nothing, or very little, about human growth and development, making decisions about our children? If you have never written to your legislators, think about it. Together, we can all make a difference. In Ohio, google “Ohio General Assembly”, put in your zip code, and you will be directed to the legislators for your area.
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This is great news. I am so happy to hear this and finally be able to utter: no excuses Parents. Finally an assessment that we can use to hold parents accountable. It’s a great day. Thank you Pearson!
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I got a laugh from that, but then I started thinking (a dangerous thing). Suppose the privatization rheeform movement is ultimately successful, and the result is a dystopian future with test prep mills for the many (staffed by McTeachers), and elite private schools for the wealthy (staffed by well educated intellectual types).
As time goes on, where would the wealthy get the educated teachers that they need for their own kids, who can deliver the rich, intellectually nourishing curricula they want? The test prep mills of the hoi polloi won’t be producing them, and the students in the private schools of the rich are being groomed for loftier professions than mere teaching. So where will the rich get their teachers?
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At that point who cares! They deserve a share in the misery they created. I wouldn’t shed many tears for them. I will try to teach the unwashed masses, they are more my type of people. I hope the elites run out of teachers.
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That makes me think of a recent conversation that I had with the IA who was substituting in my classroom. She had been supporting a kindergartener with an IEP for social/emotional SDI in his general education classroom. This sweet child is cognitively typically developing. The sub IA wanted me to recommend the little boy for occupational therapy because he did not hold his pencil correctly. His grip is correct, but he holds the pencil in the middle rather than at the tip. The sub IA did not approve of my response that he was 5, and it was at that point the 10th day of school, and that any number of the 80 kindergarteners at my school were learning how to hold their pencils, and this child was more advanced in many of them, in that he could write his name and correctly form most of his letters. What is actually wrong here is that kindergarten has become the new 2nd half of 1st grade and 1st half of 2nd grade (and preschool, such as Head Start the new kindergarten and first half of 1st grade). Kids that arrive in kindergarten not knowing how to write their names or hold their pencils are being considered low or behind.
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