High-Stakes Tests for 3-year-olds
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schaltain
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| If you're the parent of a young charter school student -- or just someone who cares about early education -- we are less than a week away from a new system in which all PreK and Lower Elementary charter programs will be ranked according to student test scores on reading and math. Here's an article that outlines the context, the research, and how to weigh in to share your voice http://www.samchaltain.com/high-stakes-tests-for-3-year-olds PLEASE WEIGH IN! |
Anonymous
| I find the tenor of this article and the comments fairly disingenuous. There is no such thing as high stakes testing for a 3, 4 or 5 year old with a competent teacher. Kids that young just don't give a damn - unless a teacher tries to pressure them. And, of course assessments exist that give a pretty good indication of where kids are developmentally starting at birth. The question for me is how you transform those into a paper and pencil test, and also how you interpret results. Some kids are early readers, some are not. By and large this evens out, so I'm not sure what useful conclusions could be drawn from these tests. That to me is the bigger question. |
Anonymous
| Lots of information on the charter school board's website. Looks like schools aren't doing anything they haven't already done, http://www.dcpcsb.org/Blog/Default.aspx?title=Early-Childhood-PMF003A--What%27s-Proposed003F |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
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What is new are the stakes and what the assessments focus on. The people on the ground who know the kids far better than the school board members were able to take many factors into account when measuring progress in the past. Now they will be forced to focus on just a few things.
Also, teachers focus on what they're being measured against, and what their salaries and jobs depend on. What they're going to be judged on from now on are primarily math and literacy scores. But what matters much more for those kids to be learning are social skills and creativity. With these tests, you get a lot of unnecessary anxiety (not good for teaching OR learning), labeling of kids, and a misdirection of resources. |