A hat tip to education blogger, Susan Ohanian, for calling attention to this. Arne is doing away with NCLB because he says 82% of schools would have failed this year.
He is replacing it with Race to the Top, which now requires testing of kids in the first months of kindergarten. These assessments will take much of the teacher's time and will cause a loss of the personal interaction of learning in a comfortable classroom situation.
So the Department of Education is replacing the failed NCLB testing with more testing. Arne Duncan brags that the new testing he is requiring is more than just filling in bubbles. While that may be true, the new testing he is adding is taking time from a real depth of learning.
States Ready Tests for Kindergarten
Ohanian Comments: It's unfortunately no surprise that state functionaries--and the New York State United Teachers (for shame!)-- succumb to the lure of money and agree to engage in practices that are, at best, pretty much useless. Federal policy already put DIBELS testing into kindergarten. See Kindergarten teacher details lunacy of standardized tests for kids for the 27,000 data entries kindergarten teacher Nancy Creech must make every year. She notes: "I am spending so much time recording "formative" assessments that I don't have time to evaluate the meaningful assessments and plan for instruction, much less time to actually teach!"
When is she supposed to fit in another test? Where's the evidence this new test has any validity?
It is shameful that government functionaries put a scramble for federal money on the backs of five-year-olds. It is worse than shameful that the federal government uses OUR tax dollars for this purpose.
Ohanian is referring to this article from the Washington Post, in which a kindergarten teacher gives details of the records she is required to keep on her students.
Kindergarten teacher details ‘lunacy’ of standardized tests for kids
Race to the Top put us on the data bandwagon and Education Secretary Arne Duncan has now called for more “formative assessments.” Even though Michigan did not win Race to the Top money, we are nevertheless answering the call for data for data, data, and more data, for children in kindergarten. I am spending so much time recording “formative” assessments that I don’t have time to evaluate the meaningful assessments and plan for instruction, much less time to actually teach! I now have to give a total of more than 27,000 check marks or grades for my class of 25 students per year. This is not counting the stars, stickers or smiley faces I put on their work each day.
Here is more from the teacher about testing 4 and 5 year olds.
"It is also expected that all kindergartners be given the Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA) as they begin to read. Sometimes determining the level at which to assess requires that 2 or 3 reading samples be attempted. A level is to be recorded as well as a fluency and comprehension rubric number. 25 x 3 = 75
.."This is not counting the time it takes to listen to each child retell a story three times a year, nor listen to them count to 100. It also doesn’t include checking in and correcting homework.
This is how it works out. If on average I have the children 5 hours per day (on days we have a prep and lunch), times 180 days, we have the students 54,000 minutes per year. Recording more than 27,500 scores and checks in a year, we would be doing a check mark every two minutes of every hour of every day for district required assessments. When do we have time for a word of encouragement? When do we have time to give a sticker or a smiley face? When do we go to the bathroom? When do we teach?
The Wall Street Journal covers these new tests as well.
States Ready Tests for Kindergarten
New York and New Jersey are preparing to administer mandatory school-readiness tests to children as young as 4 years old in an effort to win millions of dollars from the federal government.
The states submitted applications this week for the newest round of federal Race to the Top money, the Obama administration's signature education program. The competition gives more weight to bidders that perform wide-ranging assessments of children in the first few months of kindergarten.
In New York, they would gauge children's language, math, science and literacy skills, as well as emotional and physical development, and general knowledge
A serious comment was made by a teachers' union head. He seems to honestly believe the results will be used wisely.
Richard Iannuzzi, president of the New York State United Teachers, said he supports the proposal as long as the state uses the results sparingly.
"It's a precious time and a delicate time to be testing children," he said. "We need to be very careful how we do it and what we read into those results."
In this new climate where test results are God-like, I doubt they will always be used wisely.
Although the NY district will get 100 million from Race to the Top funds, they will not pay the 4 million needed to perform the assessments. Guess that will be left up to the district to pay.
A spokesman for the state education department says this test will be okay because the kids are not filling in bubbles. He said "To be clear, it's not like a bubble test. The kids aren't filling out paperwork. We're not scanning things in."
No, the students are not doing the bubbling...the teachers are doing it.
Such a simplistic view of the new process of testing everyone at every age in everything. It is a view that shows no understanding of the interaction that is needed between teacher and student.
It is leading to the loss of the deeper kind of learning that requires analysis and thinking and perception.