Post date: Feb 19, 2014 4:13:3 PM
Current education policies support an over-emphasis on testing and assessment at the expense of all other aspects of K-2 education. Research shows us that standardized testing is developmentally inappropriate for early learners. And, there is absolutely no evidence that standardized testing contributes to the growth, development, learning or daily well being of children. So, why is it happening? In 2002, the No Child Left Behind Act went into effect requiring students to be tested annually and schools and teachers be held accountable for their students’ progress. However, lawmakers and politicians are uneducated on best practices in early childhood and have no regard for the fact that young children should not be assessed the same way as older students.
STATEMENT OF POSITION
I believe standardized testing should be abolished in K-2 classrooms and replaced with assessments that serve in ways that enhance opportunities for optimal growth, development and learning. Young children need opportunities to engage in active, age-appropriate, play-based learning. They need to figure out how things work, explore, question and have fun (Carlsson-Paige, 2008). In his book The One World Schoolhouse: Education Reimagined Salman Khan (2012) says, “Nurturing this sense of wonder should be education’s highest goal; failing to nurture it is the central tragedy of our current system” (p. 59). Assessment of K-2 students should include carefully selected informal and formal strategies that measure precise characteristics over several designated periods of time and in different contexts.
INCLUSION OF SUPPORT FOR ARGUMENTS
Standardized tests do not have a place in K-2 education and should not be used for making decisions about young children and their programs. There is plenty of time for that later. Standardized tests have their uses for older children, but only as an audit function, not as a measure of knowledge and skills of individual children (Carlsson-Paige, 2008). We know that children develop at individual rates causing inaccuracy in the testing data. And, people outside the education profession often misuse test data for their own purposes. School districts use test scores to justify budget requests, judge teachers and determine merit pay. Schools often misuse tests as screening tools for placement in ability leveled classes. Additionally, we see politicians using test scores for their own agendas.
Schools are being held accountable for standardized tests scores and are turning their attention and resources toward preparing teachers to administer and score tests rather than meet the needs of the whole child. Additionally, teachers are becoming more dependent on scripted curriculum designed to teach what is on the tests (Miller & Linn, 2013). Teachers feel frustrated and undermined as professional educators. As a result, competent teachers are leaving the field and being replaced by teachers with weak education backgrounds. Children learn best when trained and responsive teachers observe them closely and provide curricula personalized to meet each child’s needs.
Assessing the progress of young learners is still a necessity. However, many alternatives to standardized testing are available. The following is a list of appropriate assessment techniques of students in Grades K-2:
1. Teacher observation
2. Teacher designed tests
3. Teacher observation
4. Checklists and inventories
5. Parent conferences
Individualized assessments of abilities provide teachers with the information they need to modify teaching and learning. “We must make sure that our schools have a strong, coherent, explicit curriculum that is grounded in the liberal arts and sciences, with plenty of opportunity for children to engage in activities and projects that make learning lively” (Ravitch, p. 13).
CONNECTION TO EDUCATIONAL THEORY
Theorists have influenced our understanding of the way young children learn and develop. Jean Piaget created a four-stage model of how the mind processes new information. The four stages are:
Sensorimotor stage (Birth to 2 years old). The infant builds an understanding of himself or herself and reality through interactions with the environment. It is able to differentiate between itself and other objects. Learning takes place via assimilation and accommodation.
Pre-operational stage (ages 2 to 4). The child is not yet able to conceptualize abstractly and needs concrete physical situations. Objects are classified in simple ways, especially by important features.
Concrete operations (ages 7 to 11). As physical experience accumulates, accommodation is increased. The child begins to think abstractly and conceptualize, creating logical structures that explain his or her physical experiences.
Formal operations (beginning at ages 11 to 15). Cognition reaches its final form. By this stage, the person no longer requires concrete objects to make rational judgments. He or she is capable of deductive and hypothetical reasoning. His or her ability for abstract thinking is very similar to an adult (Piaget, 1954)
Students in grades K-2 fall between the pre-operational and concrete operation stage. As previously mentioned, children develop at different speeds and enter the concrete operation stage at various times. Standardized tests are pencil-and-paper, and more recently we are seeing a transition to computerized testing. Both are developmentally inappropriate because some children are not yet capable of conceptualizing abstractly. Piaget (1954) deducts that during the concrete operations stage, children are beginning to think abstractly and are able to explain what they have learned. Students in grades K-2 are typically between the ages of 5 and 8. Assessing this age group via standardized testing procedures is not a best practice. Accepting anything for our young students other than an engaging and developmentally appropriate curriculum and teacher-designed assessments is a disservice to them, their parents and their teachers. It is vital that education stakeholders understand this and make research-based decisions for assessing young learners.
CITATIONS
Carlsson-Paige, Nancy (2008). “Reclaiming Play: Helping Children Learn and Thrive in School.” Exchange.
Khan, Salman (2012). The One World Schoolhouse: Education Reimagined (pp. 58-59). Grand Central Publishing. Kindle Edition.
Miller, David M., Linn, Robert L., and Gronlund, Norman E. (2013). Measurement and Assessment in Teaching, pg. 17-18.
Piaget, J. (1954). The construction of reality in the child; translated by Margaret Cook. New York, Basic Books [1954].
Ravitch, Diane (2011). The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education (p. 13). Basic Books. Kindle Edition.