The Head Start standardized tests have arrived:
The new federal emphasis on accountability in education reached Nate Kidder recently in the form of his first standardized achievement test. Nate is 4 years old.
He sat on the edge of his chair in the cafeteria at the West Early Childhood Center, where he is a Head Start child, and chewed his lip. Patricia Stevens, the center's principal, gave him the 15-minute exam, asking questions on simple vocabulary, letter recognition and math. At one point, she showed Nate a page with four pictures and asked him to point to the one that matched the word "vase."
I've heard from readers who suggest that fifteen minutes is a long time for a four-year-old to concentrate on anything, but the personlized interaction and the type of test items here do not seem inappropriate for the purpose of the test.
...More than half a million 4-year-olds in Head Start programs around the country are taking the same test, which has been mandated by the Bush administration...
Federal officials say the test will improve the quality of Head Start, the 38-year-old program intended to prepare poor children for kindergarten. But many of the country's leading education experts, and Head Start providers and teachers, say the test could harm the children as well as Head Start...
Wonder which one of these potential harmful situations has these experts more concerned? As described above, it is very hard for me to see how the testing situation could be harmful. The NYT goes out of its way to point out that Nate was "nervous" and that the test was "not fun," but my guess is that most four-year-olds are in the process of learning to deal with situation that challenge them, and are used to "not-fun" situations (i.e., picking up toys, being punished for pulling the cat's tail, etc).
The suggestion that kids might be guessing on the exams is also floated here as an implied criticism of the exam, although (a) guessing behavior is present on every test from this Head Start assessment right up through the medical boards, and (b) if kids consistently guess right, then at some level they do know the answers. If most kids are responding randomly, that will show up in the item statistics, and the test developers will realize that the test is not appropriate.
Experts also say the test fails to take into account the complex lives and needs of children living in poverty.
"When you get an answer from a child living in poverty, it's not a very good indicator of their capacity," said Dr. Edward Zigler, a psychologist, a founder of Head Start, and the director of the Center on Children and Social Policy at Yale University. "They have a variety of motivational factors that get in the way. If you grew up in poverty, you become wary and suspicious of adults you don't know, and testing situations."
If I read this correctly, this psychologist is essentially saying that if a child is from a poor home, there's no real way to test if they can recognize letters of the alphabet, and it's a given that they're afraid of testing, period. That sounds like poppycock to me. Instead of assuming that these children will mistrust strangers, and presumably lie to them, why not use this opportunitey to teach kids that testing can be safe and relatively stress-free? The test administrators don't berate kids for getting the wrong answers, so why are we being told to assume that the kids will be freaked out by it?
Wade Horn, the federal official in charge of Head Start, said that extensive field testing had been done to make certain not only that the test is reliable, but also that children find it "fun, interesting and enjoyable."
The test was clearly not Nate Kidder's idea of fun. When Mrs. Stevens showed him four pictures of people with different facial expressions, and asked him to point to the one that matched the word "horrified," he bit his lip and looked at her for reassurance.
And...four-year-olds never do that any other time? When Mommy goes to introduce Nate to someone new, does he sometimes bite his lip and shy away, or look at her for reassurance? Does that mean Mommy should never put Nate in those situations, simply because they're not fun? Is "fun" the only rationale that should be used when deciding how to educate a child?
Obviously, I'm not advocating torturing four-year-olds, but the NYT is really reaching here in their efforts to demonize this test. You can't tell me that for every Nate in Head Start, there's not also a Natalie who eagerly awaits the chance to show off how well she can identify the letters of the alphabet. Why didn't the NYT interview that child?
One can argue, as one of the test administrators did, that the test questions were not appropriate, or one can argue that the drawings used were poor, or that the illustrations need context. Those are all valid criticisms of any test. But I think it's silly to claim that all kids will be as unsure about answering as Nate was, and while I understand the concern of teachers who feel that kids like Nate will have their confidence undercut by these exams, I see no reason to assume up front that that will be the case.
Oddly, one teacher claims that "building confidence" is one of the main components of Head Start, and complains that the tests don't measure this. Does this mean they'd rather the test administrators give feedback during the exam? This might make the test less stressful for some, but more for others. Why the assumption that a neutral testing environment must be a confidence-destroyer?
Opponents of the test agree with federal officials that Head Start needs to be improved...[but]...they worry that Head Start teachers will start teaching to the test — and overemphasizing literacy and math skills.
For children from deprived homes, who will presumably go to less-than-stellar public schools, is it possible to overemphasize literacy and math skills at this point? Since when did we decide that it was harmful to teach these skills to young kids? When did we start assuming that the type of kids who attend Head Start cannot benefit from learning these skills?
Many of the children at the West Center here have parents working at minimum-wage jobs at Wal-Mart, Burger King or other businesses. Some parents are barely out of their teens.
Even more reason that Head Start should be offering enhanced educational opportunities to the children of these parents. And if the parents are very stressed out about these tests, who may be partially to blame for that? Perhaps the teachers and Head Start officials themselves, who describe these tests in such an unremittingly negative fashion. And perhaps the NYT as well, which manages to mention a chatty, non-nervous little test-taker near the end of the article, along with another jibe at the test administrator:
At the Head Start center, John Ross Espino, a chatty 4-year-old, was a lot more interested in talking to Mrs. Stevens than in answering her test questions. When she asked him to point to the picture that corresponded to the word "diving," he told her, "I have swimming lessons today."
Normally, Mrs. Stevens said, she would have been delighted to talk with John Ross about his swimming lessons. But in keeping with the test instructions, she proceeded to the next question.
Yeah, that's just....torture. You mean these people are trying to get four-year-olds to stay on task for fifteen minutes? Imagine that. Is this the worst the NYT can come up with? If so, they're going to do have to do a lot more to convince me that these tests are actually harmful to kids.
These tests may indeed not be valid for this group, but if that's the case, the test scores and the item statistics will show that. This sort of presumptive hatchet job tells me that the NYT has already decided the tests are invalid; the better to ignore the results when they're finally released, I suppose.
Update: Don't miss Joanne Jacobs take on this subject. I particularly like it when she yells at the fatuous psychologist who insisted that poor kids can't be tested:
Fatuous comments:
"When you get an answer from a child living in poverty, it's not a very good indicator of their capacity," said Dr. Edward Zigler, a psychologist, a founder of Head Start, and the director of the Center on Children and Social Policy at Yale University. "They have a variety of motivational factors that get in the way. If you grew up in poverty, you become wary and suspicious of adults you don't know, and testing situations."
Joanne's reply:
IT IS NOT A TEST OF THE CHILDREN'S CAPACITY! It's a test of the effectiveness of Head Start. The test is given by the teacher, an adult the child does know. And I don't believe four-year-olds are wary of testing situations. It's a game to them. Maybe a boring game, but a game.
All caps counts as yelling, right? And Joanne emphasizes, as I should have but didn't, that the NYT tack of attacking the test's meaningfulness for assessing individual children is moot. The purpose of the test is assess how well Head Start helps children; the debate is really made of up those who want to know if Head Start is teaching kids useful academic skills along with social skills vs. those who are comfortable with the US having spent $60 billion since 1965 on a glorified day-care system.
My guess is that those who are so heavily criticizing the test in advance would like to keep the money rolling in for the glorified day-care environment. Otherwise, why such animosity towards an exam that doesn't report scores for individual students?
Update: I should have known that Scott Ott would have uncovered the secret to equalize our nation's youth:
The Senate version of the Head Start reform bill would rename and 're-mission' the Great Society program. Instead of trying to prepare poor children for school in hopes of enhancing achievement, 'Slow Start' will enroll children from middle-class and wealthy families and attempt to "confuse and de-motivate them" so that they won't excel their peers from low-income families.
'Slow Start' is part of the Democrat party's new 'No Child Leaved Ahead' program, designed to prevent underachievers from suffering self-esteem drainage when they note the superior performance of their classmates.
"Our nation was founded on equality," said Massachusetts Senator Edward M. Kennedy. "But the poor kids will never catch up if we don't do something to trip up the rich kids."
Mr. Kennedy expects that enrollment in the 'Slow Start' program will exceed Head Start in its first year.
"Most well-off people have just lucked into their money," said the Senator. "They feel guilty about how their clever little prodigies always bust the grading curve. They would love to do something to level the playing field, and they're willing to stoop to conquer inequality."
Ha!
Posted by kswygert at October 29, 2003 11:26 AM