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Preschool Test May Be Suspended
April 12, 2007
The optimist sees the rose and not its thorns; the pessimist stares at the thorns, oblivious to the rose.
-Kahlil Gibran
-Kahlil Gibran
Congress is moving to end a standardized test backed by the Bush administration and given to hundreds of thousands of preschool children in Head Start programs each year, amid complaints from early childhood experts that the exam is developmentally inappropriate and poorly designed, reported the Washington Post (March 18, 2007; article here):
"The National Reporting System, a set of mini-tests said to measure verbal and math skills, has been given in Head Start programs each fall and spring since 2003. Bush administration officials say the test is necessary to help determine how well the nearly 2,700 Head Start programs in the country are progressing. Before the national test was introduced, each Head Start program used its own assessments to monitor student progress. Critics question whether the test accurately measures how much a child learns and cite a 2005 report by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, that raised concerns about the way the test has been implemented.
"This spring, the test is scheduled to be administered to 410,000 4- and 5-year-olds unless Congress moves to end it. On Wednesday, the House Education and Labor Committee voted to end the test in a vote on the reauthorization of Head Start.... The Bush administration promoted an overhaul of Head Start, especially the National Reporting System, as part of the president's major early-childhood initiative, a follow-up to his K-12 No Child Left Behind program, which emphasizes standardized tests. It was also seen as an attempt to shift Head Start's focus from nurturing children's social and emotional development to emphasizing literacy."
Beat the World Forum Rate Hike
On April 15, the regular registration fee for the 2007 World Forum expires and the late registration fee (with an $130 increase) goes into effect. In addition, rooms at the conference hotel, the Kuala Lumpur Shangri La, are quickly being depleted. So don't delay, go to the World Forum web site, www.WorldForumFoundation.org, and register and reserve a hotel room today.
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Comments (2)
Displaying All 2 CommentsUnited States
YEAH!!!! I agree with getting rid of this test! There are current successful assessments in place that show a child's developmental progess in a natural setting, not some contrived formal setting that lends itself to stress and test anxiety! It is a very poorly constructed test with obvious bias, in my opinion and experience.
United States
I agree with getting rid of standardized tests. Good. Although I feel programs that receive federal dollars should have some sort of statistics that show some sort of accountability, standardized testing is not the way to go about it. There is a lot of money from the companies that produce the standardized testing that goes into lobbying congress. It is a system that goes against the very beliefs and researched philosophies on how children learn.
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