The worries over the Head Start testing program just keep a-comin'. The previous high anxiety article related to this program featured a tyke named Nate; this time, our object of concern is Joe:
In a small room in east Portland, the world of standardized tests -- and of educational accountability -- has reached down and tapped Joe on the shoulder. He's 4 years old. And as he sits across the table from the woman with the pencil and the score sheet -- counting the blocks on a page, trying to name letters -- he unwittingly finds himself at the center of a national debate.
About accountability. And about measuring the learning of 4-year-olds.
Education leaders in the Bush administration believe that many Head Start programs -- part of the 38-year-old national program that tries to prepare preschool children from poor families for kindergarten -- don't do their jobs well enough. So, this fall, they are mandating standardized tests of the 450,000 4-year-olds in the nation's more than 2,500 Head Start programs...
So far, so good. A neutral enough introduction to the issue, which is indeed thorny. If Head Start is indeed meant to give kids a head start on academic issues, it's not unreasonable to develop some way to assess the quality of the academic instruction. Problem is, some Head Start supporters believe the tests are actually at odds with the heart of the program:
...many Head Start officials, including some at the three Head Start programs in Portland, say the tests are useless, at best, and could end up threatening the good work that Head Start programs do.
It's totally inappropriate to test 4-year-olds," said Susan Brady, executive director of the Mt. Hood Community College Head Start, where Joe attends classes. Four-year-olds don't reveal most of their knowledge or their learning abilities through such rigid formulaic tests, she said.
Samuel Meisels, a Chicago specialist in early childhood education, said the 20-minute standardized test -- formulated in a matter of months this year -- "is incredibly narrow ... a very, very limited sample of children's knowledge of vocabulary, letters and math."
I'm not surprised the test is narrow; is Meisel's suggesting that we make the test longer? I don't think so. I think the issue here is that the Head Start programs will be judged in part based on a narrow measurement of ability (that is questionable to begin with based on the ages of the test takers), and that's a valid concern.
However, if there's a different and better way to test these kids, I see no reason not to do so. I also was unaware that the Head Start programs would be judged entirely based on test results. In fact, I doubt that's the case. The test has been mandated to help improve Head Start program quality, not just to grade and punish different programs. One Head Start advocate is quoted as saying that this testing requirement (which parents can opt out of, by the way) is just a means to destroy the program altogether, which doesn't jibe with the following:
Federal Head Start officials say it's ridiculous to think that they want to end Head Start. "The idea that you would somehow dismantle, (or) signal that you want to dismantle the program, when you have proposed a $148 million increase in its budget seems contradictory," said Windy Hill, associate commissioner of the federal Head Start Bureau.
"In terms of this being some grand conspiracy ... there is not a conspiracy," Hill said. "There is a commitment to make sure that the $6.7 billion that the taxpayers provide" is being spent effectively.
Six point seven billion is a lot of money, and that money came from all of us who pay taxes. So who says we can't start finding some way to see if that money is being used to good purpose, instead of being mismanaged or thrown away outright? If these tests don't give us good data, let's try something else. But it's absurd to say that the desire to see if a system is functioning efficiently is the same as the desire to destroy that system.
Overall, though this article is much more balanced and neutral than the NYTimes article that I blogged a while back. Not a bad job.
Oh, and what about Joe?
Which brings things back to that small room, and Joe, and the woman with the pencil asking him questions. Joe (not his real name -- his parents asked that his name not be used) sits in a tiny chair across a small table from Head Start test proctor Tina Williams, his short legs swinging free, not quite reaching the floor. He's able to name many of the letters of the alphabet that Williams shows him. For another question, he counts 13 blocks on a page before his counting gets confused.
But then Williams asks him to point to a drawing of a nostril, and Joe hesitates, before pointing a tiny finger to the drawing of an ear on the same page. Williams makes a little mark on her score sheet. And Joe sighs...
....Joe's place at the center of the debate has ended -- at least until next spring. As he finishes the test, Williams tells him he did a great job and lets him choose an animal sticker as a reward. Joe ponders, chooses a small alligator sticker, smushes it proudly on his bright red T-shirt and happily walks out of the room.
Posted by kswygert at December 2, 2003 04:16 PM