This Is How Out of Control Testing Has Gotten in Schools

[mfcorey1]

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/this-is-how-out-of-control-testing-has-gotten-in-schools/ar-AAeSnc8?li=BBgzzfc&ocid=mailsignout

For anyone who doubts that education in the U.S. has become overrun by testing, consider this. My daughter's first day of kindergarten – her very first introduction to elementary school – consisted almost entirely of assessment. She was due at school at 9:30, and I picked her up at 11:45. In between, she was assessed by five different teachers, each a stranger, asking her to perform some task such as cutting, coloring in the lines, reciting her address and phone number, identifying letters and their sounds, and counting. She then had to wait two days, while all the other incoming kindergartners were assessed, to learn of her teacher and begin the school year in earnest.

From an educator's point of view, this approach makes good sense. Determine what it is that kids know. Then use that baseline knowledge to assemble a class.

But this was an intimidating initiation from a child's perspective. Usually an outgoing and independent girl, my daughter was clingy and nervous on her first day of kindergarten. When I asked how she was feeling as we approached the front door of the building, she said she did not want to go to school. She did not have any friends yet. She did not know her way around the building. She worried that there would be too many people. What if her teachers were mean? What if kids made fun of her when they heard her name? What if she had to use the restroom? She was a bundle of nerves. I'm sure this testing scenario did little to quell her concerns. I have no doubt that however she was assessed, she did not perform from a place of confidence or comfort. Even under less trying circumstances, such one-shot assessments are of questionable validity.

Indeed, by the time I picked her up, she had not relaxed at all. She did not want to talk about what she had done in school, but she did say that she did not want to go back. She did not know the teachers' names. She did not make any friends. Later that afternoon, as she played with her animals in her room, I overheard her drilling them on their numbers and letters.

[Facility Inspector]

1. No singing songs?

no naps?

milk breaks?

I'm glad I grew up in the last human generation.

[Brickbat]

2. Huh, some districts do the kindergarten readiness assessment during the summer or several

months before. One of my kids did k-readiness in a completely different building than the elementary school.

[Nay]

9. Yeah, that's what our school district does. Kids are sorted into classes way before

school begins, so the testing process is not an additional stressor added to the natural stress of the first day at kindergarten.

[LittleBlue]

3. What exactly is wrong with testing?

They quizzed the author's daughter on the first day. Okay, but I could see why a school would want to assess everyone's abilities.

Usually an outgoing and independent girl, my daughter was clingy and nervous on her first day of kindergarten. When I asked how she was feeling as we approached the front door of the building, she said she did not want to go to school

Yeah, I was clingy and nervous my first day at kindergarten too. Most of us were.

[Phentex]

5. I didn't even GO to kindergarten...

it wasn't required back then.

I STILL have trouble with scissors.

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In all seriousness, I think so much depends on personality. My kids couldn't wait to go to school. They never stressed over tests. I was lucky if I even knew when they were doing the tests (except when they asked us to bring snacks!) All we did was eat fish the night before and tell them it was brain food.

[KittyWampus]

4. And if her kid wasn't assessed she'd have been happy? The first 2 days were not "school".

I find it really odd that the school district didn't inform parents that there was going to be an initial assessment period.

Suppose they 'tested' her daughter and found indication she has a learning disability. I bet Mom would be glad.

Or if her daughter already could read a little and follow instruction really well, I be Mom would be annoyed if she got put in a class with very slow learners who didn't know the alphabet.

[villager]

6. First days of class should be about group bonding, class cohesion...

Especially at that age.

You want them to like being there, to feel secure with their "cohort" and their teacher, etc...

"Assessing" can happen during this time, if it needs to, if the teacher and his/her assistant are observant enough. But certainly this colder kind of "assessment" can wait, until some sense of "belonging" has been fostered...

[KittyWampus]

7. so the 4 year olds can bond with teachers and children then get moved to another

teacher and group of kids after they are assessed?

[villager]

8. No. So they can bond with teachers and children.

PS: They're usually 5 year olds.

[TBF]

10. Testing is profitable -

the end.

[sharp_stick]

11. The Kindergarten assessment

here is done in the summer, a few weeks before school. I know the teachers in my kids school go out of their way to make it fun for the little ones too.

My youngest just started Kindergarten this year and he was kind of pissed when the assessment was over. He didn't want to go home.

They use it to get a handle on where the kids are coming in because some of them arrive with absolutely no early education and others can already read at least a little. I'm surprised this school did it on the first day, it's not a good time to disrupt the kids any more than just going to a new school is going to do.

The first couple of days are intimidating for all of the kids, it's a new place with a bunch of new people.