every state funded 3 and 4-year-old preschooler to be tested. "WHAT?"
you say! They are going to test kids? No, that is terrible!
wizards down at city hall! They want to test our kids on what they
learned before they came to school!
child if you haven't taught them something? Maybe, just maybe, NYC is
trying to help some kids.
NYC is going to require screenings
of kids for developmental delays, not test them. The instrument they
will use is Pearson's Developmental Assessment of Young Children (DAYC) –
first published in 1998. It has been scientifically tested to ensure
that it provides valid and reliable scores that are meant to shed light
on a child's developmental level. This assessment is similar to other
early childhood screenings including the Developmental Indicators for
the Assessment of Learning (DIAL) and the Brigance early childhood developmental assessment. Maybe this is Pearson's fault though. Here is some of its description:
The DAYC is a battery of five sub-tests that measure different but
interrelated abilities. The battery, which is designed for use with
children ages birth through 5.11 years, was created to measure the five
areas of assessment mandated by IDEA: cognition, communication,
social/emotional development, physical development, and adaptive
behavior. The five sub-tests (one for each of the domains) can be
administered separately or as a comprehensive battery in about 10-20
minutes.
And the idea that their child might be diagnosed with a disability as a
result of testing is even scarier to an uninformed pre-k parent than
Metallica. No wonder New York's designer diaper bag set is up in arms!
Also, I couldn't find any technical information about the DAYC online.
The lack of information adds to the shroud of fear about the testing
that is already apparent. If Pearson were open about the technical
limitations and implementation of the DAYC, parents may not have
thought it was a "test" but a tool that exists for teachers to help
kids.
The truth is, developmental assessments have been done
in preschool for years and years. And even more years. Finding out
where kids are when they come to the classroom is important to an
educator. How else can we know where to start teaching? Just like any
form of "assessment" or measure, it should be used along with other
information when trying make decisions regarding a child's learning or
needs.
information on children or that it is even developmentally appropriate
at very young ages. The National Association of School Psychologists (NASP)
makes some recommendations whenever a developmental assessment of young
children is to be completed. They say, assessments should be:
- developmentally appropriate, flexible, ecological, whole-child
focused, strength-based, skills-based, and family-centered (Bagnato et
al., 1997; Bricker, 2002);- conducted by a multi-disciplinary team (Nagle, 2000);
- linked to intervention strategies designed for young children (Meisels, 1996);
- based upon comprehensive, educational and/or behavioral concerns,
rather than isolated deficits identified by individual assessments
(Bagnato et al., 1997);- nondiscriminatory in terms of gender, ethnicity, native language,
family composition, and/or socio-economic status (Lynch & Hanson,
1996); and- technically adequate and validated for the purpose(s) for which
they are used, including the provision of norms, where applicable, for
minority children and children with physical disabilities (DeMers &
Fiorello, 1999).
As a final note, it is just this sort of reactionary approach by
some consumers of education services that keeps educators and education
from reaching its full potential. If policymakers and practitioners had
more accurately communicated the reason for using the tool, this could
have been an entirely different news story. I am starting to think that
the middle may be the new radical!
Well, I think that the idea of testing students when the come into pre-K is very scaring to a parent considering they are enrolling their children so that they can begin to develop their school-age skills and abilities. It can be scary because students come in at all different levels and from all different settings, and there is a fear that a child could receive a label before even starting school. On the other hand, working in a school setting myself and always interested in the levels of my own children, I definitely believe that it is necessary to have some sort of initial screening for educational baseline purposes, if it is only used for that very reason. It is important to see the growth that a child has made from the very beginning, middle, and end of the school year. I believe that if this wasn’t considered a test, but instead considered a tool, and if parents know that it is only for basline information in order to track and monitor growth, this wouldn’t be such an issue.
I wonder if those espoused leaders in NYC understand the difference between screening and assessment. I wonder if the goal is to capture young children during the entry process (those needing additional support to remedy long term effects of going undiagnosed) but those espoused leaders don’t understand early care and education in the correct context. I wonder if someone could offer advice from scientist in academia like Sam Meisels, policy makers like former Senator Kennedy and early childhood practitioners like the author of this blog. I wonder. I wonder if the discourse which exist between scientist, policy and practitioner will find some common ground and create effective, efficient programs for young children with the goal of introducing children to ways of knowing and learning which are their own. Children already know what they don’t know. When adults seek to find out what they don’t know, adults seek to ‘teach’ to an invisible test.