Archives for category: Childhood, Pre-K, K
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What Are We Doing to the Little Ones?

By dianeravitch
September 14, 2012 //
12

A pre-K teacher in New York City expresses alarm at the proliferation of developmentally inappropriate mandates:

The debate is already on about what constitutes quality early childhood education and, private schools not withstanding, in NYC and thanks to NYS for including common core in pre-k, it is not a good thing.
In our continuing effort to “win the gold medal” in education, we have lost sight of what it means to be a child in the United States.
Despite volumes of research on the subject of early childhood learning, many have pushed down the curriculum into pre-k so far as to make it not a community of learners but small people struggling to memorize useless information will do nothing to enhance right brain thinking and develop children into adults who are able to be actual thinkers rather than drones.
Children develop along specific biological pathways. Some develop some parts of their development sooner than others. Children are not on a trajectory of development. Some will start speaking sooner but take a little longer to get all those gross and fine motor skills. Some will be “ready” for the challenge of a super structured classroom that we see today and others will need a more experiential environment.
I have posted before that I teach pre-k in a NYC public school and have seen the decline in developmentally appropriate practices over years.
This last year the cots were removed from my room because resting took away from instruction.
This was tried several years ago when NYS mandated no naps, fewer trips to the bathroom and less hand washing, citing that in pre-k we were losing 60% of instructional time with all those frills. Pre-K teachers ignored the mandates and eventually the state rescinded. Sadly, they are back again.
There was a time when every child in my class was celebrated for his/her personal accomplishments. Today each child is judged not by what they can do, but rather by what they can’t do. This makes no sense.
Many children in pre-k are seen as “at risk” simply because they are not meeting some arbitrary benchmark on a statistical timeline. The “suits” need to read “Leo the Late Bloomer”
I don’t want want to sound paranoid and think everything is a conspiracy, but some days it’s difficult not to think that way.
I teach in a NYC community where there is high poverty and all the collateral damage that goes with it. I think quite often my students are set up to fail so those who have big money and big titles and no educational background point and say, “see, these children are not capable of learning more than just rote learning” The “suits” can create low level employment for thousands, some of whom had more capabilities but were shuttled into a narrow educational tunnel from which escape is very difficult.
Once again, I invite those who would take away from my students all the things that their children enjoy in their schools, both public and private, to create schools that look like the schools their children attend rather than create what I sometimes call “practice prisons”.

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K

Syracuse Elementary Schools Drop Recess

By dianeravitch
September 7, 2012 //
29

In hopes of raising test scores, elementary schools in Syracuse are eliminating recess.

This discounts mountains of research about the importance of non-cognitive skills, which are often learned on the playground,

And too there is the pesky fact that children need tine to run and play.

A sound mind in a healthy body.

But not in Syracuse.

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Education Reform, New York, Testing

Florida Gets Tough on 5-Year-Olds

By dianeravitch
September 2, 2012 //
23

In Florida, as we learn from the comment below, it is never too soon to get tough. It’s never too soon to give tests and hand out grades. Even five-year-olds need to know that someone (the State Education Department? the Legislature? Jeb Bush? ) has high expectations for them! It’s never too soon for them to learn the Great Lesson: Perform on our tests or you are marked a failure. The treadmill starts here.

Must be part of that big Pearson contract with the state.

A reader reacts to an earlier post about whether it is right to give 2-3 assessments to kindergarten children:

In Clay County FL, we give NINE assessments to the kindergarteners. The math assessment will have 25 questions on it and be given one-on-one. The assessments include reading (FAIR), Performance Matters Math and Science. Our kinders are now being given grades weekly E, V, S, N, U.

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Education Industry, Florida, Pre-K

Wisconsin Parent Needs Your Help

By dianeravitch
September 2, 2012 //
56

A parent in Wisconsin wrote to say that the new “reform” law in his state requires that kindergarten children be assessed 2-3 times a year. He wants to opt out his child. He contacted the Wisconsin Reading Coalition to ask for their advice, and this was the response he received. He wants to know what others, perhaps some who are experts in early childhood education, think about this issue:

Wisconsin Reading Coalition

The kindergarten screening is like a well-baby check: looking for pre-reading predictors of eventual reading failure like poor phonemic awareness. It gives schools an opportunity to intervene early and prevent the academic, personal, and social fallout from poor reading. Poor reading, of course, affects the individual child, but also holds back the entire class. The assessment that was chosen by DPI (we would have preferred Predictive Assessment of Reading, as it also checks for rapid naming and vocabulary) is PALS (Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening), developed in Virginia. PALS is very short and low-key, delivered by the classroom teacher, and similar to many kindergarten classroom activities. You can see a video of the assessment being given at https://pals.virginia.edu/tools-k.html
Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Education Reform, Testing, Wisconsin

Bring Back Childhood

By dianeravitch
September 1, 2012 //
8

My children went to a school where the kindergarten had a doll corner, a sandbox, a place to build a city with blocks and toys, and lots of other play stations.

Their teachers believed that play is children’s work.

I might add that they became skilled readers and writers and have productive lives.

There is no reason to banish childhood.

Exploration and curiosity come naturally to children. They want to know. They want to figure things out.

They will do it unless some misguided adult demands that they stop playing and fooling around.

Let children play and imagine.

It builds their brains and their sense of wonder at the same time.

A retired kindergarten teacher writes:

As a retired Kindergarten teacher, I feel so sad for these Kindergartens of today and the future. No toys…..no learning how to share and play with others. No dress-up corner….no learning how to role-model acceptable grown-up behavior. No recess…..no gross motor movement and no learning acceptable social behavior and teamwork. Will there be music and dance to stimulate the brain and body movement? Will there be art for creative expression and to develop thinking patterns and processes? Will there be puzzles for spatial recognition and improving math cognizance? Will there be free choice to wander and wonder into the ‘magic’ of science centers, math centers, word centers, listening centers, etc. I could go on and on but I am getting depressed. I LOVED my days in Kindergarten and knowing that I was giving my children the gift of loving school and learning. Today’s teachers will have their hands tied to ‘testing’ and ‘results’ and ‘academics’ (whatever that is!). I mentor student educators now and I ask them to please speak up for what is right in their classroom…..be an activist and stand tall for your children and their learning environment! I hope we can turn this around soon!!
Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Education Reform

In This World Ranking, We Are #24

By dianeravitch
August 31, 2012 //
12

The Economist magazine has published a major international survey of early childhood education.

The survey establishes the importance of early childhood education, which is supported by extensive research.

It says:

“This Index assumes that all
children, regardless of their background,
legal status and ability to pay, have a right to
affordable, quality preschool provision.”

Then, it ranks 45 nations by their provision of early childhood education.

The United States is #24, tied with the United Arab Emirates.

Can we expect to see editorials across the U.S. about this shockingly poor performance?

Can we expect to see a Hollywood film–documentary or fictionalized–about this shameful statistic?

Will we soon hear reformers insisting that all three- and four-year-olds should be able to participate in a high-quality program that has well-prepared and credentialed teachers and small class sizes?

Now that’s a reform movement we could all support.

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K

Idiotic Pre-K Performance Assessments

By dianeravitch
August 30, 2012 //
8

A reader tells us what is expected of Pre-K teachers in New York CitY, where teachers must administer laborious tasks which are filed away and forgotten.

too late..pre-k is already being assessed with performance tasks.


In NYC we can choose one ELA and one Math bundle.

that’s what the DOE calls units–bundles. I’m not quite sure why.


In my district we were encouraged to use the five senses for the ELA and Math
Each bundle provides performance tasks for both.


We had to do a 6 week unit on the five senses. Do you know how much wasted time that was teaching the 5 senses over 30 days?
The performance tasks in ELA required children to draw a picture of themselves using one or more of the 5 senses. The math required telling a story using manipulatives and asking children addition and subtraction question.


If one is really interested you may find the bundles on the DOE website in the office of early childhood section.

Back to the assessment. After the children drew their pictures, each child had to conference with the teacher and tell the teacher what he/she had drawn and what sense had been used.


With the math we were supposed to have 4 children at a time but that really didn’t work out because some of them called out the answers. So one child at a time and the child was to give the response and articulate how she/he came to that answer.


Aside from many students getting very, very stressed, I am sure by now those of you who are teachers can calculate the number of hours it took to administer these tasks and then score them using a DOE created rubric for each.


This all had to copied for our files and originals sent to some suits somewhere in the universe.


I never heard back from anyone. Somewhere there are hundreds of sets of performance tasks bundles sitting in a room. I’m not sure what use they were to the suits. If you calculate the number of pre-k classes in the NYC DOE and multiply the performance tasks x2 (we had to do 2 in the fall and 2 in the spring..2 each of ELA and 2 each of Math) you can imagine that the DOE either has a lot of empty space or they took a storage unit somewhere in Manhattan to house all these useless papers.


In pre-k we have 18 children in all day and some schools have 18 and 18 in half day programs.


The administration of these tasks took hours over several weeks. Think of all the instructional time that was lost. When I started the assessment process I made private notes on how each child was going to do. I didn’t miss one.


I won’t even tell you how bored my kids were by the end of this bundle.

And they didn’t really learn anymore than when I taught the 5 senses in one week.
Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Education Reform, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Could This Happen in the U.S. Today?

By dianeravitch
August 26, 2012 //
12

This post shows that our society is placing an unfair buden on children and their teachers. When was the last time you heard of a kindergarten with 43 students? Could this be the United States in 2012?

A teacher comments:

I had a class of 43 kindergarten students last week. What do you really think I can do with that many little ones? I often go into a class expecting a certain number only to have 8 to 12 more students. How can I be prepared to teach those extra students? Those students will either be repeating what I have already taught their own class or will be getting the lesson before the rest of their class. I have had to postpone my pretests that I will be using with my Student Learning Targets.

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Teachers and Teaching

Does Connecticut Law Permit Opting Out?

By dianeravitch
August 26, 2012 //
11

A parent objects to Connecticut’s plan to test children in kindergarten, first and second grades and asks for your help:

Does anyone have any info on “opt out” procedures in CT? My daughter will not be subjected to this destructive nonsense during these crucial, early years.

 

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Connecticut, Education Reform, Malloy, Dannel, Testing

Is Common Core “Developmentally Appropriate”?

By dianeravitch
August 25, 2012 //
11

A reader comments on the discussion of Common Core’s effect on pre-K and K:

Thanks, Diane, for making room on your blog for this critical topic.

Karen states that the “overacademization of kindergarten and preschool classrooms” is not a new trend. That may be true, though without a doubt the problem has intensified. The Alliance for Childhood report The Crisis in Early Education A Research-Based Case for More Play and Less Pressure (Miller and Almond, November 2011) states that “the pushing down of the elementary school early childhood has reached a new peak with the adoption by almost every state of the so called common core standards.” That report also looks at the high rate of preschool expulsions of late. Preschoolers and kindergarteners are now being expelled at three times the rate of K-12 children. How can that be okay? Peter Gray has documented the decline of play and the increase of childhood problems over recent decades in his article “The Decline of Play and the Rise of Psychopathology in Children and Adolescence” (The American Journal of Play, volume 3, number 4; Spring 2011). The increase in the number of young children attending overly-academic preschools and kindergartens is most assuredly part of the problem. An increase in childhood depression and anxiety are some of the results. When our mission should be, at the very least, to do no harm, clearly the children are being harmed. We cannot toss them in the trash like a cake with too much salt or a recipe gone awry (to further Karen’s analogy above). They are human beings, for goodness sake.

Finding ways to stay developmentally appropriate, when many of the tests and assessments are not, is becoming increasingly difficult. And looking critically at the how, what, when and why of testing and assessments which have increased with RTTT, is important work for the early childhood community. If ever there was a time in the USA for early childhood educators to be looking closely at policy and debating the direction of early childhood education, now is the time. As the leading organization of early childhood educators, NAEYC should be at the forefront of advocating for young children – and speaking out against policies that aren’t grounded in what decades of research has proven: that children develop best — socially, emotionally and cognitively — when they have educational experiences that promote creativity, thinking and problem solving skills, and engage in meaningful activities geared to their developmental levels and needs.

Nancy Carlsson-Paige is not alone in her assessment of the situation. A national coalition of early childhood educators met earlier this year regarding their concerns about the current education policy trends and their negative effects. You can read more about that in an op-ed piece titled “How ed policy is hurting early childhood education” published in Valerie Strauss’ The Answer Sheet at The Washington Post. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/how-ed-policy-is-hurting-early-childhood-education/2012/05/24/gJQAm0jZoU_blog.html)

Geralyn Bywarter McLaughlin
Director, Defending the Early Years
deyproject.org

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Common Core
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