Peter Greene here tackles one of the grand ideas of our strange era of unrealistic goals and expectations: Can you tell if a five-year-old is college-ready?
He makes a great point: If you knew that your five-year-old was college-ready, why would he or she need to take an SAT a dozen years later? Why not just put the college applications in at age six?
Perhaps Peter has never encountered one of Arne Duncan’s most memorable lines.
“We should be able to look every second grader in the eye and say, ‘You’re on track, you’re going to be able to go to a good college, or you’re not,’ ” he said. “Right now, in too many states, quite frankly, we lie to children. We lie to them and we lie to their families.”
Some teachers know when their students are leaving kindergarten. Others know in second grade. Are you college ready? But when you ask the kids themselves, as one of the commenters says on Peter’s blog, they say they want to grow up to be a ninja or something else utterly improbable. They want to be a cowboy or a football star or a singer. Why aren’t they thinking of Harvard or Princeton or Yale?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
And if I were six, and I heard this, I would be worried. Very worried, scared and probably traumatized.
“We should be able to look every second grader in the eye and say, ‘You’re on track, you’re going to be able to go to a good college, or you’re not,’ ” he said. “Right now, in too many states, quite frankly, we lie to children. We lie to them and we lie to their families.”
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For a second grader, being excluded from a classmate’s birthday party used to be upsetting. Mr Duncan’s crystal ball is a whole new realm.
Did Michael Johnson’s being cut from junior high basketball team mean he wasn’t “career ready”?
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Thanks for the nudge, Peter and Diane. I just mailed off my five-year-old’s application to Harvard. I’m worried that I procrastinated too long with my seven-year-old, so I’m afraid she’ll have to be content to spend a fortune not to get a degree in HVAC repair from some for-profit college.
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funny.
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Dienne, I just learned about Bethany Mota, now appearing on Dancing w the Stars. She is a video blogger (Dr Ravitch’s alma mater, Wellesley, didn’t advise her classmates of that career option) who is now designing for Aeropostale at age 18. Your 7-year-old could re-conceptualize jacks or jump ropes and still have a scintillating career.
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When searching in vain for the reason for a problem in education, never discount stupidity as the cause. Duncan is but the latest example.
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nuts
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I can look my five year old in the eye and know he’s ready because he IS Darth Maul. Today. But yesterday he was Darth Vader and then he also was Luke Skywalker that day too.
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It’s great when 5 year olds are Darth Vader, but when they grow up and become public officials and are still Darth Vader, there is some cause for concern
I posted this earlier:
“College-ready in kindergarten”
College-ready in Kindergarten
Bachelor’s in first
PhD in second grade
A life that’s well-rehearsed
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so true. And funny (but not really).
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Please, most 5 year olds have only been out of diapers for 2 or 3 years. They are one year removed from being a toddler.
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Tha’s right. That’s why they are pretty sure they will be Star Wars characters.
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I thought this was kind of sad. It’s about the 3rd grade reading test in Ohio. They get left back if they fail:
“Charlton admitted, though, that there’s a lot of pressure surrounding this and other tests, since those scores are counted in teachers’ evaluations and district report cards.
“But if we put all that pressure on the students, we’re doing them a disservice,” he said. “We need to make that part of the regular educational process. We don’t recommend that schools have pep rallies or pizza parties and things like that to draw attention to the test. Let’s just make it part of the regular school day and give those assessments as if it’s part of the regular education process.”
Charlton is with the Ohio Dept of Education. He apparently believes the third graders WON’T KNOW this test is high stakes if the adults don’t hold a pep rally and tell them it’s high stakes.
They all know, of course. They’re not idiots. Calling it an “assessment” probably isn’t going to fool them.
http://stateimpact.npr.org/ohio/2014/10/08/ohio-schools-administer-first-round-of-third-grade-reading-guarantee-tests/
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Does promoting students year after year create a different set of problems? High school teachers have often posted here about students who read at far below grade level.
I am reminded of this comment ( https://dianeravitch.net/2013/07/19/the-negative-effects-of-holding-kids-back-in-third-grade/comment-page-1/#comment-219369 ) where the poster wrote
“I have had many, many students in my 9th-12th grade classes who read anywhere from first to fourth grade levels. This happens in my district because teachers are required by principals to pass the students, and even change their grades in order to graduate them to the next level.”
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I think it’s silly to pretend the tests aren’t important. Of course they are. We base every decision on them. Pretending we don’t makes the adults feel better about it, but it isn’t true.
They know anyway. It’s not like the pep rally was the tip-off.
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Chiara,
I agree that pretending tests are not high stakes for students when they are is silly, but so is pretending tests are high stakes for students when they are no stakes for the student.
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@teachingeconomist I know. I wish there was a button one could click. Hard to convey sometimes. But Duncan’s idea is past crazy. Absurd comes to mind and so do a whole lot of other words.
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Mark,
It is always possible to read a short statement uncharitably, but I don’t think it is especially productive or sensible.
I would read Arne Duncan’s statement as meaning that Kindergarden students are taking the first step on a road that will allow them to become a productive thoughtful member of society, not that they have achieved that goal at 5.
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TE there is just so much about the human condition, sociology, psychology, history, and even economic theory that you seem clueless about. One doesn’t even know where to begin.
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Betsy,
You might try. What am I particularly clueless about now?
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teachingeconomist:
Which Duncan statement are you talking about? This is the statement Diane quoted:
“We should be able to look every second grader in the eye and say, ‘You’re on track, you’re going to be able to go to a good college, or you’re not,’ ” he said. “Right now, in too many states, quite frankly, we lie to children. We lie to them and we lie to their families.”
If you “would read Arne Duncan’s statement as meaning that Kindergarden students are taking the first step on a road that will allow them to become a productive thoughtful member of society, not that they have achieved that goal at 5,” then either you don’t know how to read, or something is clouding your judgement.
The problem with Duncan’s statement is that, like many of his statements, it just doesn’t make sense.
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Randal,
I think I am reading the quote charitably, that students are on a path. Not that they have reached the end of the path, not that they will certainly reach the end of the path, but that they are on a path.
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If you think Arne couldn’t be any more incompetent, think again. His newest absurdity is special education’s birth to 3yrs early intervention programs.
According to IDEA, every state must have an early intervention system that serves children with disabilities from birth to age 3 yrs. (public school takes over services for kiddos with disabilities at age 3yrs.) The feds are requiring state systematic improvement plans with “measurable & rigorous targets.”
TN’s early intervention system (TEIS) must provide “measurable and rigorous results” for infants & toddlers with disabilities & their families. The data must show that early intervention is “closing the achievement gap” and provide the percent of infants & toddlers who are “preschool ready.”
You read that right “preschool ready.” What does that even mean? Preschool is where kids get their first ever experiences away from their caregivers. Preschool is the first time kids find out they can smear paint on their hands & paper, play with other kids by sifting through a big bin of rice, dance in big circle with a partner, chase butterflies in a butterfly tent, or turn pudding in plastic ziplocs into a snack.
When will this insanity end? Enough is enough.
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I don’t think we have gone far enough. I think there should be tests to figure out if 2 month olds are Birth & Life ready.Fail the test? Back in you go until you show big gains!!!!
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The man is out of control. Here’s a checklist, no, make that a rubric of what to expect:
http://www.babycenter.com/milestone-charts-birth-to-age-3
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I am not sure what about that link upsets you. Perhaps your post is meant to be ironic?
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@teachingeconomist – Yes – it is.
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Mark Collins,
Given the extreme nature of some heartfelt comments made on this board, irony is difficult to identify.
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Maybe “ed reformers” can delay birth in utero if data reveals this will help with those darn scores at a future date.
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TE… Your last series of comments raise a question in my mind. What do you know about Asbergers Syndrome?
It has been my pleasure to teach many children that are on the high end of the Autistic spectrum. They generally have a difficult time understanding social context and social cues. In other ways they can be brilliant. I am asking because I am curious.
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Betsy,
I have family members with Asbergers.
I am curios why you think my comments have any connection at all with students on the Autistic spectrum. I hope every child can be said to be on a path to being a productive and thoughtful member of society.
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I think Betsy initially concluded that there was “so much about the human condition, sociology, psychology, history, and even economic theory that you seem clueless about” that she didn’t “even know where to begin,” but then on reflection decided that implying you have Asbergers was the place to begin.
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FLERP!,
Thanks for the clarification. I suppose these attempts to belittle and bully fly over my head because I don’t expect teachers to engage in these practice. It was not until poster Nano started to call me “Koch Sucker” that I realized that the posters previous name for me, “Ayn Rand Rug Sniffer” was meant to be a sexually demeaning.
This sort of thing makes it difficult to have an actual discussion about a better education for all, but I will soldier on.
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No. We need to start screening ultrasounds to determine whether late term fetuses are holding their hands in a position in which a pencil could be placed so that we can judge whether they’ll be primed for that birth assessment test. So what if the baby’s only one hour old? Give it test, damn it!
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I agree this is crazy, but it didn’t happen in a vacuum. Parents also need to reevaluate what they expect from schools when their children are in the early grades.
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One of the advantages of having taught in the same relatively small district for a long time is that I got to see my former students over time. All district teachers were invited to the high school graduation so I had a chance to see where my former students were headed post high school. What I learned the most is to NOT generalize about their prospects! Learning and development are not linear! Many times I could get a sense of how students would turn out, but I was sometimes wrong. Some students that developed more slowly in elementary school became stellar students in high school and college. I recall an ELL student that entered in 4th grade speaking no English that got a scholarship to Cornell and another slower reader, K-3, that was Phi Beta Kappa at Columbia. Of course, I also remember a few bright students that got tangled up in drugs and landed in prison. Teachers alone are not responsible for how a student turns out, and there are many other factors and variables in their lives. That is another reason why we need to provide an array of opportunities for our students, and stop trying to pigeonhole and label them.
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Yes! I know two delightful, well-mannered teenagers, at different high schools, who are smart and thoughtful and get good grades and take IB and AP classes. Neither one learned to read until they were… hold on to your hats… eight years old! They had the good fortune of being girls born to white, middle-class, college-educated parents, so the adults in their lives assumed they would learn to read when they were ready. They did. (Now they read all the time.) Why can’t we extend that same patience to children born in different circumstances?
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I went to an Ivy (yes from a poky lil ‘ol NYC public high school.) Many of students who shone most brightly in that environment had taken a few years after high school to do things like join the Navy before they showed up. So the students who were truly college ready were the ones who felt they weren’t college ready at 18.
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“teachingeconomist
October 14, 2014 at 3:32 pm
Chiara,
I agree that pretending tests are not high stakes for students when they are is silly, but so is pretending tests are high stakes for students when they are no stakes for the student.”
I don’t agree that tests that measure the child’s teacher and school are “no stakes”. I think that’s a purely adult construct, and weirdly legalistic. Are tests that measure the child’s school and teacher *technically* “high stakes” for that student? No, they’re not.
But do they matter to the student, affect the whole climate of the school? Of course they do. It’s their school. They’re there all day with the teacher who will be measured on their test score. I think the whole “they’re not high stakes for the STUDENT” parsing creates a wholly false distinction between the child and their daily environment that seems to be a particular blind spot of ed reform. That isn’t how systems and environments work. Individuals don’t move within them and remain unaffected by them.
“We’re just measuring your teacher and your school with this test! It’s not about YOU!” Yeah, right. Sure it isn’t. For goodness sakes. They’re TAKING the tests. Obviously they’re important to the adults for some reason.
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Chiara,
I said no stakes for the students. As Dr. Ravitch has said in the past, no one has figured out how to make high school students care about exams that have no impact on them. That is why she mistrusts the NAEP scores for high school students.
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I don’t believe that tests that measure teachers and schools are “no stakes for students”
I think teachers and students work in the same place. Their interests overlap.
I think claiming these tests are “no stakes for students” is a fundamental misunderstanding of how systems work, like claiming charter schools have no effect on public school systems so we can open as many as we want and public schools will remain the same as a “choice”.
If you pull on one string the whole fabric changes, and that change can be bad or good.
When I read the investigator’s report in the Atlanta cheating incident, I didn’t think “oh, well, that was ‘no stakes’ for students, so had nothing to do with them”. I thought “Christ, that must have been a horrible place to go to school”
They’re IN this, children. It’s an adult conceit to say testing regimes are “no stakes” for them. It makes adults feel better about putting them in.
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Do you think the converse is true, that tests like the NY Regents Exams or SAT/ACT exams that are high stakes for students are also best viewed as high stakes for teachers?
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My son was so stressed out about the 5th grade state writing exam, which was “low stakes” for him, that he didn’t sleep very well for several nights prior to the test. Then, when the computer ate his essay, his school forced him to redo it (they didn’t tell the parents). You don’t think, TE, that this was not stressful for him?
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Threatened,
Why was your son so stressed? I have asked my children about thier MAP exams, and they said that when they were younger they could be made to care about the exams, but sometime about junior high they stopped worrying about it. Exams that determined thier grades created the stress.
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If I asked a kindergarten student, “Are you college and career ready?” I would expect them to respond something like this:
1- José took my crayon!
2- Look at my new shoes!
3- When are we going to recess?
4 – (blank stare)
5 – (a smile)
Now here is what Arne Duncan and David Coleman – “true education experts” think a kindergarten student would say:
1- “I am working on reading skills during my morning message everyday and am solving abstract math problems even though my brain is not developed for this yet – boy is my teacher good. My test scores are off the charts so I feel that this is another good indication that I am college and career ready. Now that I have answered your question, can you tie my shoes?” As soon as I learn to hold a pencil and have the necessary dexterity, I will give you a written response. It might take a few days as I am still learning my alphabet”!
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Look I have a loose tooth!
Hey, I saw you today!
Hey, I’ll see you later at music.
I’m big.
Today’s my grandma’s birthday!
My mommy got me these new pink boots!
Hey music teacher.
I remember the song!
Hey he cutted!
———-
These are the things 5 year olds say.
College and career are not on their radar.
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Real one from my kindergartener:
“Juan Pablo picks up paper from the floor and puts it in he’s mouth.”
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teachingeconomist
October 14, 2014 at 5:49 pm
Do you think the converse is true, that tests like the NY Regents Exams or SAT/ACT exams that are high stakes for students are also best viewed as high stakes for teachers?”
I think you’re ignoring that standardized testing is now, actually, high stakes for teachers. That is true. It’s not true of the ACT/SAT.
You can’t put a ranking system into a school and not have that affect the whole school. Of course it does. The one and only question is “worth the cost?” because there will be a cost. The same thing is true for introducing another school system into a public school system. There will be a downside risk. There’s already a cost. Some public schools are getting hurt.
I’m not temperamentally suited to ed reform, as a philosophy or way of thinking. I know there’s always a downside risk. They won’t even acknowledge one exists, let alone consider it or measure it. That’s a fantasy. It’s also reckless.
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Depends on the state. Utah forces every junior to take the ACT, and scores do count on the state “report card.”
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Threatened,
What impact does the state report card have on the students taking the exam? Does it come even close to the exams that determine the student’s grades?
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I had the same thought: http://realchicagomama.wordpress.com/2014/10/06/standardized-testing-redux/
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And they want to extend this to pre-school.
A few years ago, I worked for a pre-school program (public school program) that tested two year olds on their ability to rhyme words, identify beginning sounds and recognize all letter names and sounds. There was no thought that half the class had the added burden of communicating in a second language. My teacher’s aide and I had twenty children between the ages of two and five. Some were still in diapers. But they were being subjected to standardized testing, including Dibels (this test is not considered to be valid or reliable in children under five).
I was placed in a classroom with two shelves (they were top heavy and easily tipped over, if I was sitting I couldn’t, see the children on the other side) and three tables. I did have a wooden kitchenette, but no dolls, dishes, or food. The district provided my class with about two dozen mis-matched wooden blocks. There were no puzzles or other small manipulatives. I was to have five books per child available at all times. I was provided with twenty or so books. I was informed that I could borrow needed materials from other teachers in the program. The other teachers personally owned their materials and had no intention of sharing. I was allowed to set up my classroom 24 hours before students would arrive. I couldn’t set up, I had to shop first. There wasn’t even a pencil sharpener in the room. There was nothing provided that looked anything like an early childhood classroom.
I was provided with a curriculum (teachers edition) but none of the materials. Intersestingly the guide had a shopping list of materials I would need to buy to implement the lesson plans. I did have an $800 budget per month. Out of that I would need to provide all classroom needs including the two daily snacks required each day. I had to buy all of the paper, paints, pencils, and toys from that budget. And I was to save some of it to pay for a field trip at the end of the year. I learned later that it costs at least $10000 to appropriately set up a functioning pre-school classroom.
In my state, children in a full day program who are under three are required to have an hour and a half nap time. They are required to be on mats that are at least 18 inches thick or on cots. Children two and under must have a separate napping room with cribs. The children brought towels from home to rest on. They were only supposed to have a twenty minute rest time so that they would have more time for learning. This worked well for the five year olds, not so well for my two year olds. I about came unglued when I found a dead mouse underneath one of my shelves. Outside the children played on equipment meant for kindergartners and first graders. They ate in the school cafeteria with tables that were too big for them. Students often fell between the benches and table as they tried to reach the food on the table.
The program was developmentally inappropriate, poorly furnished and had safety/health issues. But it was free for the students and funded by a grant from the federal government. I still believe in high quality pre-school. But I have strong doubts about Washington’s a ability to recognize a quality program. Did the district get a pass on state regulations because it was a federal program?
A high quality early childhood program does not use standardized tests. It does not fail to provide basic safe child friendly materials and it most certainly does not come from a computer. These practices are equally questionable for kindergartners. All children are on a pathway to meaningful adulthood. When we ignore or dismiss their developmental needs, we stymie their ability to grow.
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Arne Duncan said that. He is a total idiot. If the U.S. is being led by fools like him, we are doomed. Don’t tell ISIS or they may arrive tomorrow to start beheading everyone in America.
When I was that age, I wanted to be a millionaire, Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great or a pirate. College wasn’t even a word that was in my vocabulary.
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To Joanna Best & artsegal above–if pre-school & K children are going to be attending charter schools (& very regimented ones, to boot), do you think that they are even going to be given the slightest opportunity to talk (even in a cafeteria)? I recall reading–somewhere–that some of the more regimented charter chains (was it KIPP?) did not allow talking/conversation, even in the cafeteria. Cute & smart childhood wisdoms (“out of the mouths of babes”) will become a thing of the past. The oligarchs would foist it upon “other peoples’ children” to become a Chinese/South Korean (& who is that state supt. “visiting” South Korea to see how “good” their schools are {on the taxpayers’ much-more-than-a-dime, of course}–the guy from Dallas?) type of subgroup. How about all those Gulen schools with the largely (or entirely) Turkish faculties? I can’t imagine young children making their charmingly normal random statements in those classrooms (or anywhere else in those schools).
Instead of No Child Left Behind we will have No Child(hood) Left. Period.
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