In a rare break from its established stance of applauding whatever Mayor Bloomberg’s Department of Education does, the New York Daily News published an editorial ridiculing both Pearson and the schools’ chancellor Dennis Walcott.
Only
Sat week the News had an editorial defending the Pearson Common Core tests, even though the vocabulary and content of the fifth grade exam that was available to the editors was age-inappropriate.
What seems to have moved the editors to high dudgeon was that Pearson made so many errors in scoring the high-stakes exams for preschoolers hoping to enter a kindergarten for gifted and talented.
A deeper question might have been to ask why there are G&T programs for 5-year-olds.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“A deeper question might have been to ask why there are G&T programs for 5-year-olds.”
A great question. Next it will be college tracking for preschool.
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I’m way ahead of you, Mercedes. My pre-k charter school, The Transformational Academy for Totally Awesome Excellence, is marketing pre-k SAT prep.
Anyone who questions my motives or methods obviously is a status quo-loving child hater.
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Let’s just go for broke and enter the womb with standardized testing!
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Is this satire or real? It’s hard to tell these days.
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see the teeniest tiniest test takers here:
http://studentslast.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-tiniest-test-takers.html
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The answer is related to the reason why there are high-stakes exams for 4- and 5-year-olds hoping to enter the Dalton School.
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The programs exist as an enticement for the wealthier families to stay in NYC and not flee to the suburbs. The programs really do not have much to do with gifted or talented children (and yes, no test of a 5 year old could ever prove giftedness). These programs did not always exist. They were created in the 80s and 90s when higher income families with were leaving the city. Now, the wealthy parents all prep their children, thus insuring their spots in the programs and shutting out everyone else.
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Get this…one of my friends told me that the school district tested her son to see if he qualifies for ADVANCED PRESCHOOL and ADVANCED KINDGERGARTEN. My mouth fell on the floor.
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Pick up your jaw, Yvonne– this is corporate reform! 🙂
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ADVANCED in what potty training?
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Duane Swacker: and I am sure it will warm the cockles of your heart to know that many of the celebrity “education reformers” are being invited, along with their little ones, to attend the potty training classes. And not just to provide parental support and encouragement or so that they too can experience firsthand student success and excellence.
Think positive—if you believe it, you can achieve it! Give them credit for trying. If you don’t know how to provide a “better education for all” at least you’ll finally learn [after so many years of relieving yourself on the rest of us] how to do it right.
Or so one can only hope.
Hacer changuitos/cruzarse los dedos por suerte/cross my fingers for luck.
🙂
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Good grief. It was hard enough to sit through the six hour-long tutorials by Pearson for Home Base all teachers in NC have to complete before the end of the school year without knowing this.
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Good point…
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“Deep Question” and “NY Daily News” seldom appear in the same sentence…
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When a child is truly gifted they can go to virtually any school and still perform at the top of their class. This is the beef I have with grade rated schools. I know that people can go to a school rated “4” and still perform at the top percentile.(Even though the rating makes it look like no one in the building can learn and perform at a high level) I’ve seen it with my own eyes. This stuff for preschool children is nonsense.
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Reading through this made me think–do these children fill in bubbles or circle answers? Is this oral response? I cannot picture even G & T pre-k kids having a fine motor skill set/eye-hand coordination/transference skills to enable them to do this (I taught G & T pre-school kids, & also parented a G & T pre-schooler.) Ditto for computer tests. Someone, please answer! Also, if someone has a sample of one such test (highly unlikely, Top Secret, I know, but it doesn’t hurt to ask!), could we see it? I can’t quite wrap my head around this!
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Most of the kids who get placement were given test prep classes that trained them for weeks or months on how to take these exams. Parents pay thousands of dollars for these classes. Hence, the economic segregation of these “G&T” programs is perpetuated.
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I need to add that prepping children is technically not allowed by the DOE but the DOE does nothing to enforce this rule.
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I know how to identify a gifted and talented preschooler: the child who walks away from the idiotic test and seeks out a more productive activity (watching a bug, building a tower, playing with a puppet) is clearly gifted and talented.
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EXACTLY!!! Last night my kindergartener was telling my fourth grader and me about “pairwahlellowgrams.” If you are not yet able to articulate R’s (which is in normal range for kindergartners) then I am not sure you need to be learning about parallelograms! We could tell she had a very concrete, distinct idea of what it was and my fourth grader said, “I didn’t learn about those until last year!”
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Because your need a special place for the children of the rich.
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I wouldn’t say G&T students are generally “rich.” NYC’s special places for the children of the rich are called Dalton, Brearley, Collegiate, Trinity, etc. And yes, they make 4- and 5-year-olds take high stakes tests for admission. Plus an interview. The G&T admissions process is mellow by comparison, except for the stench of desperation and stampede mentality.
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Children in G&T programs in NYC are generally middle to upper middle class. Most G&T programs are in the wealthier districts. There are 8 G&T programs for the wealthy kids of D2 and only 1 program in D6 despite the fact that D6 is larger; some poor districts have zero G&T programs. The DOE is basically saying there are no smart kids in the poorer districts. It’s disgusting. These programs were created as a way of enticing the middle and upper middle classes from fleeing to the suburbs. Now that they don’t do that, the programs need to be dismantled. Many wealthier parents are climbing over each other via test prepping to get their kids in so they don’t have to pay for private schools.
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In NYC pre-k children are not required to bubble in the G&T test. The test administrator does it for the child. Originally Pearson wanted them to do the bubble but so many educators complained they backed down. K students, however, must do the bubbles themselves.
The sad thing is that the test only tests one type of giftedness and the pressure is enormous.
Though it’s untimed, it takes nearly an hour to complete-way too long for small people to sit and focus.
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Thanks for your answer, Sheila. Unbelievable! Do they use those thick, easy grip & K-sized pencils, or must they use No. 2s?!
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the Transformational Academy for Advanced Aspirational Excellance pre-K had a chess tournament with the Tranformational Academy for Totally Awesome Excellance, and the Transnational Super Righteous New Brain Academy. they all were awarded trophies, only one participant it appears soiled themself, which is truly a record for this rigorous competition. Our hearts go out to Mr. Duncan.
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