This post was written by Phyliss Doerr, an experienced kindergarten teacher in Néw Jersey.
As we wind down a year of tremendous controversy in the realm of education in the United States, I thought I would share some of my input given in January to a New Jersey Board of Education panel on testing led by Education Commissioner David Hespe.
As a kindergarten teacher, I find the trend to bring more testing into kindergarten not only alarming, but counter-productive and even harmful.
In the kindergarten at my school, we do not administer standardized tests; however, hours of testing are included in our math and language arts curriculum. In order to paint a realistic picture of the stress, damaging effects and colossal waste of time caused by testing in kindergarten, allow me to bring you to my classroom for our first test prep session in late September for 5-year-old children.
The test for which I was preparing my students was vocabulary. I say a word that we had learned in our “nursery rhyme” unit. Then, I read a sentence containing that word. If the sentence made sense, using the word correctly, the student would circle the smiley face. If the word were used incorrectly, they would circle the frown. This task requires abstract thinking, a skill that kindergartners have not yet developed — a foundational problem for this type of test.
My first sample vocabulary challenge as we began our practice test was the word “market,” from the nursery rhyme “To Market, To Market.” After explaining the setup of the test, I begin. “The word is market,” I announced. “Who can tell me what a market is?” One boy answered, “I like oranges.” “Okay, Luke is on the right track. Who can add to that?” “I like apples. I get them at the store.” We’re moving in, closer and closer. A third child says, “It’s where you go and get lots of things.” Yes! What kinds of things? “Different stuff.” Another student chimes in: “We can get oranges and apples and lots of other types of food at the market.” “Excellent! Everyone understands market?” A few nod.
“Now, I will give you a sentence with the word ‘market’ in it. If the sentence makes sense, you will circle the smiley face, but if it is a silly sentence and doesn’t make sense, you circle the frown.” A hand goes up. “Mrs. Doerr, what’s a frown?” I explain what a frown is.
Next, I read the sentence: “‘I like to play basketball at the market.’ Now, does that sentence make sense?”
The students who are not twisting around backward in their chairs or staring at a thread they’ve picked off their uniforms nod their heads. “Please, class, listen carefully. I’ll tell you the sentence again: ‘I like to play basketball at the market.’ That makes sense? Remember we said a market is where we shop for food.”
A hand goes up. Terrell says, “I like soccer.” “Okay, Terrell, that’s great! But did I use the word ‘market’ correctly in that sentence?” “I don’t know.”
Another hand. “Yes? Ariana? What do you think?” “My dad took me to a soccer game! He plays soccer!” “Thank you for sharing that, Ariana.” The students picked up on something from the sentence and made what seems to be, but is not, a random connection. “Girls and boys, look at me and listen. I want you to really think about this. Would you go to a market and play basketball?” At this point everyone seemed to wake up. Finally! I was getting somewhere! “YES!” they cried out in unison.
Of course! It would be a total blast to play basketball in the market!
So here we find another huge problem with this vocabulary test: a 5-year-old’s imagination. A statement that uses a word incorrectly sounds OK to a child whose imagination is not limited by reality. It is the same reason Santa and the Tooth Fairy are so real to kindergartners — unencumbered imagination.
After explaining why we might not play basketball in the market, I called on a volunteer to come up and circle the frowning face. She went straight to number 3 on my giant test replica, skipping 1 and 2, and circled the frown. Why? She’s 5 and has never seen anything like this. Give the same student a floor puzzle of ocean life and she and her friend will knock it out in 10 minutes, strategizing, problem-solving and taking turns with intense concentration.
The rest of my “test prep” for the 5-year-olds went about the same.
Then came the real thing. As testing must be done in small groups since the children cannot read instructions and need assistance every step of way, I split the class into two or more groups to test.
The results of the administration of the test on the first group were mixed. Despite being the higher level students, their very first test was definitely not an easy task. Instructions for anything new in kindergarten are painstaking, but for a developmentally inappropriate task, it is nearly impossible. For example, making sure my little test-takers have found their place on the page requires constant teacher supervision. I cannot just say, “Number 2” and read the question. I must say, “Put your finger on the number 2.” Then I repeat, “Your finger should be on number 2.” Then repeat it. And repeat again, since some have difficulty identifying numbers 1 through 10. “Let me see your pencil ON number 2. No, Justin, not on number 3. On number 2.” I walk around and make sure that each child is on the right number – or on a number at all. If you’re not watchful as a kindergarten teacher, it is common to have a 5-year-old just sit there, and do nothing test-related — just look around, or think, or doodle.
Next, I tested a second group. During testing, I walked around to see that a few students had nothing written on their papers, one had circled every face — regardless of expression — on the whole page, another just circled all the smileys and one, a very bright little girl, had her head down on her arms. I tapped her and said, “Come on, you need to circle one of the faces for number 5.” She lifted her head and looked up at me. Tears streamed down her face. I crouched down next to her. “What’s wrong, honey?” “Mrs. Doerr, I’m tired,” she cried. “I want my mommy.” It was a moment I will never forget. I took her test and said, “Would you like a nice comfy pillow so you can take a rest?” She nodded. I exchanged her paper for a pillow.
So this is kindergarten.
We force children to take tests that their brains cannot grasp.
We ignore research that proves that children who are 5-6 learn best experientially.
We rob them of precious free play that teaches them how to be good citizens, good friends and good thinkers.
We waste precious teaching and learning time that could be spent experientially learning the foundations of math, reading and writing, as well as valuable lessons in social studies, science and health.
I support and enjoy teaching much of our math and language arts curriculum. Teaching vocabulary is a valuable practice. However, I contend that testing in these areas at this age is not only meaningless, since it does not accurately measure a child’s academic ability, but it is actually counter-productive and even damaging.
Further, I contend that my students are no further along at the end of the year than they would be if we eliminated most of the testing. In fact, they might be further along if we eliminated testing because of the time we could spend engaging in meaningful teaching and learning. Finally, I believe that a child’s first experience with formal education should be fun and exciting, and give them confidence to look forward to their education, not full of stress and fear because they did not measure up.
Parents and educators must speak out against harmful trends in education so that they can be reversed immediately.
Phyllis Doerr of South Orange is a kindergarten teacher.
Again I’m forced to wonder, what if everybody understood child development? As far as I’m concerned, asking children to do that for which they’re not developmentally ready constitutes cruelty. And the love of learning children are born with? Experiences like these squash it right out of them. This has got to stop.
Regarding the testing and opt-out issues, these two videos are mandatory viewing:
and
I have a stubborn child. She’s very smart but she has always done things on her own terms, our fault, she is the youngest and always gets her way. She’s five and knows her sight words, can count to 100, she can do her K homework in seconds and she even seems bored by it. In pre-k when they did the testing, her teacher told me that in a classroom setting she excelled but when she asked her questions one on one she refused to answer, and because of that she failed a lot of the test. She’s now one month in kinder and they have done the testing already which once again she failed since it’s one on one. Now the school wants to put her in special ed because of this. They are stressing me out. Our public school system is a JOKE.
I often wonder what parents would say if they could SEE the behavior of their children in the classroom. I think many would be shocked.
Shouldn’t there be some questions at some point on what all this data collection is accomplishing? It’s, what, 17 years that this method of “ed reform” has been overwhelmingly dominant in both government and lobbying groups?
They like business language and terms in ed reform so I’ll use that. If testing is the input, something we injected into public schools, what’s the output? Test results, obviously, but what else?
Governor Brown in California said he was not waiting for “testing nirvana” when he vetoed a testing bill. I understand ed reform is largely focused on opening charter schools and promoting vouchers, but shouldn’t the parents of children who attend existing public schools be able to demand to see some beneficial results of all this data collection at some point?
“However, I contend that testing in these areas at this age is not only meaningless, since it does not accurately measure a child’s academic ability. . . ”
Well, testing doesn’t measure anything as any test whether standardized or teacher made is not any kind of measuring device. Those tests may be assessment devices but are not measuring devices. And, no, it’s not just “a matter of semantics”. There are no valid standards from which to make a valid measuring device, therefore there is no measuring.
It really is that simple, folks.
Maybe we need a neologism for the testing process: mental measurbation!
An interesting article on the CNN website today:
http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/12/health/homework-elementary-school-study/index.html
There’s no evidence that homework in the elementary grades has any benefit, so even the “10 minute rule” is overkill. I highly recommend Alfie Kohn’s THE HOMEWORK MYTH.
I remember trying to help my first grade son with a worksheet that had blank dominoes. He had to take the half of the domino with a number and decide what number should be on the other side. WAY abstract for a first grader. There were a lot of tears. It frustrated both of us and took nearly an hour to complete. The teacher may have thought it was 10 minutes. It was a disaster and set up my son (now a senior) to hate school and homework for his whole school career. It wasn’t just one worksheet once–it was days and days of this garbage. I HATE it when parents demand homework. It’s so damaging for these little kids.
One of the things Kohn points out is that homework has demonstrable harms, such as you discuss in your son’s case. It should be incumbent on homework supporters to prove the benefits of homework and that such alleged benefits outweigh the harms. So far, no one has been able to do so.
I’ve recommended this book many times. This is a bright child. By not speaking one on one with an adult, her teacher, she is sending out a message. So what that she “failed” the tests! She is showing in other ways that she has grown academically. Now how is she socially? Does she interact and speak with her peers? Is she comfitsble answering questions at circle time or during read alouds? This child DOES NOT need to be in special Ed! there are so many different ways to assess a child’s growth. School just started. She may need more time to adapt to the classroom environment. If she is treated with respect and patience, I am sure, as a 34 year early childhood teacher who has had many a child like this, she will blossom.
Amen! Now when are the powers that be which include superintendents and administrators going to aknowledge this and speak out against this abuse?
Have you heard this story from NPR? According to it, the best predictor of long-term success is not academics, but social and emotional skills.
http://www.npr.org/player/embed/423605191/423605192
KY: there will not be any “social & emotional skills” if we keep teaching tests; playing basketball (or soccer) in the market will actually occur, what with the emphasis on being “college & career ready.” None of these kids, however, will be ready for real life.
And their “careers” will consist of working at the market…the one in Walmart, that is.
Actually one of the best predictors of adult success is participation in extra curricular activities in college. Not grades(unless going to medical school) and certainly not SAT’s or GRE’s.
And, honestly, this is what scares me about the political promotion of pre-k. Why would it be any different than what this teacher describes? Aren’t they just going to push this younger and younger? They’re already doing it, and no one seems to have the political will or common sense to step back and challenge it.
Ten years ago I wouldn’t have predicted high stakes in 3rd grade, and that’s now a reality in my state and many others. That was promoted by ONE powerful politician and his lobbying group- Jeb Bush.
Imagine if there had been two politicians promoting it! We’d be well into 2nd grade by now 🙂
In Utah, the preschool push is REQUIRING testing to “prove” the money is being spent well. It’s frightening and disgusting. I think the term “high quality preschool” is code for “all academics and testing in preschool.”
This is going to be happening in ILL-Annoy as well, T.O.W.
Also, curious to know what your Utah Ed. Assn. is doing about this (since Lily came from Utah). Of course, IL Ed. Assn. says/does NOTHING.
Lily ignores Utah completely unless she wants money. She hasn’t spoken out against any of the “reforms” Utah has suffered. She DID comment on the fact that the new superintendent is a lawyer, not a teacher, but that’s been about it. It’s about Lily, not Utah. Always has been.
And UEA does NOTHING. They want “a seat at the table,” so they actually agreed to the horrible evaluation system that we have to deal with now, which includes not only test scores or SLOs, but also data from parent and student surveys. Every kid (including tiny children and kids with severe disabilities) has to grade all of his/her teachers now, and EVERY school employee has to make “learning goals,” including the custodians and lunch staff. And UEA agreed to that is PROMOTES it. That’s why I am no longer a member of UEA.
” I thought I would share some of my input given in January to a New Jersey Board of Education panel on testing led by Education Commissioner David Hespe.”
Did they take any notice at all???????
“If you’re not watchful as a kindergarten teacher, it is common to have a 5-year-old just sit there, and do nothing test-related — just look around, or think, or doodle.”
Any of which choices would be more healthy for the child than the test which s/he is supposed to be doing.
Children are not too different in a first grade classroom. They often choose more than one answer for a question, skip questions and cry if they don’t understand a question. When I taught kindergarten, we tested children one to one. It is extremely time consuming. One test could take a full week. In first grade our experimenting shows that children preform better in small groups but standardized tests are computerized and done whole group. Since much of these tests must be read to the children, making sure they are on the same question is difficult. They also have a difficult time thinking in their heads. They think out loud. They will often blurt out the answer they like and then blush with embarrassment. When this happens, many students will change their answers to match. Yea this is real reliable, not! I have seen students get up and try to answer questions for their neighbor if they believe that the neighbor answered incorrectly. I have also seen children click an answer before the question is read. (One of these actually got a high score on the test. In fact, he was the and lowest functioning student in the class. He literally couldn’t tell you his own name when asked, didn’t know his colors, could not accurately count objects to ten, and knew only one letter. He needed special education but did not qualify because he had missed too many days of school. How weird is that)?The test was real valid, not!
Why are we doing this to our young children? It is meaningless.
Yes, I have had all the same experiences during testing. One time after doing my normal circulating of the room, I moved back to the table where my circulation began and saw that a child at one of the tables was helping another child, explaining which answer to circle. When I questioned the child he looked at me with a big smile, held his head high and said proudly “I am helping her”. The fact is he was following one of our classroom rules: We treat others the way we want to be treated. This girl was struggling and her friend was there to lend a hand, just as he would hope a friend would do for him.
I’d love a teacher or parent to video these lessons and blast them on the web. Parents need to see what a “rigorous, 21st century education” looks like. Teachers should decide what and how to teach, not corporate reformers!
We now have the WA kids assessment that has to be individually administered to incoming Kinders in any district accepting state money to fund all-day Kindergarten (mostly Title schools). Teachers have to meet with parents, kids will start school up to 3 days later.
My K teachers haven’t even been trained on how to administer this test. They just found out about the parent meetings. Thanks to legislative shenanigans, we found out mid-summer about the later start day for Kinders, but despite letters going home, how many will show up the first day? What kind of an impact will this have on our low-income families who now have to pay for 3 more days of daycare, or stay home rather than work. How will this test data be used? Is this test even appropriate for incoming Kinders? We don’t know. All we know is that everyone’s favorite Gates Foundation has their fingers in this one, big time.
Oh but what a wonderful means of ‘proving’ that teachers are ineffective and that public schools are worthless!
The reformists don’t give a fig if it’s abusive or developmentally inappropriate. They manufactured false research to ‘debunk’ developmental research.
There is more bang for the buck in destroying public schools and unionized teachers when testing the primary grades because massive failure and errors are absolutely going to happen. It’s what they want to happen.
Older kids have the ability to figure things out and many will and some will even pass the tests. With primary kids it’s always a crap shoot and the odds are stacked heavily against any child who is not a savant.
It’s not their kids being assessed, remember.
Teachers should know testing kindergarten students is wrong. Thanks to those that are speaking out!
My God, I could have written this entire post. She only forgot to include that about 1/3 of the class cannot handle a pencil. Some will be chewing on them. So how will the results of those tests help direct instruction? Administering those tests amounts to child abuse.
Doesn’t anyone in charge of education have even the most rudimentary understanding of children? I would have to say no, and if I’m wrong, I’m really sorry for their children – in school or at home!
This is by far the most powerful post that I have read by a teacher who is questioning the wisdom of administering standardized tests. She simply presents the actions and instructions of the teacher and the actions and words that they elicit in the classroom. No generalities necessary! This is the reality! I would elaborate by offering a record of the time consumed to move the class to a point at which they can follow the instructions accurately for each type of question. This is the powerful evidence that the experts ignore. This is the evidence that needs to be made public. Thank you for publishing this important information. We need a flood of these examples!
And this year my sweet students get to take their first standardized test on a computer, ….which most have no experience operating, and in the third week of school. It makes me crazy!!
This is beyond sad. Some in K cannot id all letters and ALL are still developing small motor skills. And they are to TEST on a keyboard? It is time for superintendents, principles and parents to stop this madness. No one else has the power to fight this. They have got to organize, discuss and plan how they can get the “decision-makers” to begin a reverse to turn this Titanic around. And the decision-making must be removed from non-educators. Wise government leaders would get all this. Wise leaders DO this – delegate to appropriate, trusted, experienced people to lead. Why is NO ONE listening??
You might as well do the tests for them. It would be quicker.
TAGO, howard! Except that she might find herself prosecuted for “cheating,” & get jail time like the Atlanta teachers.
I am a retired early childhood/elementary teacher in PA. My 5 year old grandson (May birthday) started kindergarten this year (cut off date Sept. 1st). He is the youngest boy in the class as parents hold their summer birthday children back. He has been tested twice (along with the class) with a test used by their Reading textbook manufacturer. He improved in all 3 testing areas from September to December but still didn’t meet the criteria for reading and is being taken out of the classroom for remedial reading 3-4 times a week. He is missing classroom time or nap time. When my daughter asked the teacher if the test was scored based on age – she said no that is up to the parents (meaning – hold them back).
I have a big problem with a curriculum that is not developmentally appropriate. If you have to hold you child back to match the curriculum then something is wrong. Or change the cut off date to January 1st (all children must be 6 by then).
Think about this – we went to the moon on the knowledge of people who didn’t read in kindergarten. Our scientists who developed vaccines for diseases didn’t have common core math. This pushing down curriculum to lower grades is developmentally wrong and stressful and anxiety producing for kids.
It’s all about money for the textbook and test manufacturers and politics which ties funding into scores.
It is just so wrong in so many ways.
I have recommended The Homework Myth many times. There are now quite a few courageous schools that are dropping the standard type of homework assignments for more child centered ones.
Also as a 34 year retired early childhood teacher, I have seen many a child as Gigi describes. She has shown that she is learning her academics. In not speaking one on one with her teacher, she may be sending a message . So what that she “failed” the test. That is not criteria to place her in special Ed. She may need more time to adjust to the kindergarten setting. Does she socialize and speak with her peers? Does she answer question or speak during circle time or during read alouds? It seems to me she needs to have all this testing pressure off. She needs respect and patience and encouragement. School just started!