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Education / Accountability

An Alternative to Kindergarten Readiness Tests

By Sarah Brodsky on Dec 22, 2009

Samuel Meisels, the president of the Erikson Institute in Chicago, was quoted in this article about kindergarten readiness tests:

Meisels said readiness surveys are not accurate indicators of childhood success. He advocates for teachers to observe children over time, rather than a one-time evaluation.

Districts might be inclined to use a flawed assessment rather than none at all, but Meisels explains the damage a readiness test can cause:

“It changes people’s perceptions. It can change a teacher’s perception of likely success in school. It can create parental anxiety. Worst of all, it can make a small student feel stigmatized and less capable,” Meisels said. “If any one of those consequences occur, based on a poorly designed test, it’s inexcusable to me.”

Meisels’ suggestion to observe students over time is a good one, and districts like Fulton could adopt it in place of the readiness tests they use now. The districts could accept all five-year-olds and observe them in their kindergarten class for a week or two. Then, if it’s determined that some children aren’t ready to continue with kindergarten academics, the district could place them in a separate class, have them repeat a year, or make other arrangements.

This system would give children a better chance to prove themselves ready than a short assessment provides. Kindergartners can easily fail a short readiness test because they’re nervous or distracted at the time; observing them in a classroom over several days gives a better picture of how they interact with their environment. And the only downside is that a few children with below-average hand-eye coordination or counting skills would attend kindergarten with the others for a week. (Serious developmental disabilities are not diagnosed with kindergarten readiness tests, but through more involved — and medically meaningful — assessments. So, abolishing readiness screening for all need not interfere with special education services.)

Districts shouldn’t settle for faulty readiness tests when there are better alternatives.

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Sarah Brodsky

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