Ok, I am truly baffled. I just read this piece in EdWeek on NYC's plans to test kindergartners in math. The article says that the city wants to spend $400,000 to test a program that gives kindergartners math tests that can take up to 90 minutes to complete.
As a researcher I can see why we need to test the youngest kids in order to get baseline data. But I'm confused about a few things, including:
1. Exactly what math knowledge are kindergartners supposed to have? I remember counting in kindergarten and that's about it.
2. Why in the world would it take up to 90 minutes to test students on such a limited base of knowledge?
3. What sane person would expect a kindergartner to sit still for 90 minutes to do anything, yet alone take a multiple choice test?
I'm tempted to declare this a sign of the apocalypse, but there's got to be some information missing here. I must be missing something. Right?
Update: Another article is now up on CNN. Also, the commenter kiri8 points out below that kindergartners do a lot more than count -- I stand corrected. But even with the list that they provide, I still doubt utility of such a long test and now wonder how useful baseline data would even be.
2 comments:
A few years ago I swore I would retire if I ever saw an algebra objective for the kindergarten level.
Well, I have seen them, I am sad to say. And...I didn't quit. I just put more effort into building alternative schools to rescue the increasing number of kids who don't fit into the pressure cookers that we are turning schools into.
Kate, algebra objectives for K would actually be something like making patterns with unifix cubes, which all kindergartners are capable of doing.
90 minutes of assessment seems over the top, but by the end of the year, it is reasonable for kindergartners to count to 100 by 1's and 10's, make ABAB patterns, recognize and name a variety of shapes, measure with nonstandard measurement (ie. how many unifix cubes tall is this chair?), count 20 objects accurately using one-to-one correspondence, write the numbers 0-30, and so on.
There is quite a bit more to "counting" than...well, counting.
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