
Final exams for kindergartners - ColinWright
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/08/22/and-now-final-exams-for-kindergartners-really/
======
keerthiko
In India, we've had testing since forever, for kids of every age, even to get
into kindergarten.

My understanding is that this is normal in pretty much every East Asian
country: HK, China, Korea, Japan. I don't think the education systems in any
of these countries can really be considered any worse than any other system,
and arguably has churned out way more talented and driven people to contribute
to humanity.

I am personally anti-test myself, but what is a better option? Someone
suggested "lottery", but that idea makes me shudder, as possibly the only
option worse than testing. In an ideal world, every student can be
accommodated in the learning ecosystem, and we don't require a standardized
metric to figure out if a student should advance to the next level. We would
also pace what they're being taught to their competencies and give each
student personalized learning and testing material.

But we are nowhere near being able to do that, from a resource management,
personalization design, evaluation or teacher training perspective (anywhere
in the world). I have spent much time thinking about this, and I can't come up
with a better idea for fairly allocating our education resources for places
with ridiculously large number of students, and for evaluating the progress of
the partakers of that resource (current students). That is, at least until we
invest heavily in researching how to better evaluate students and identify the
right metrics to measure and measure them well.

~~~
rtpg
>In an ideal world, every student can be accommodated in the learning
ecosystem[...]We would also pace what they're being taught to their
competencies and give each student personalized learning and testing
material[...]But we are nowhere near being able to do that

I only did up to my first year of high school in the US but there is something
like this with AP classes. This is especially prevalent in Math, where the
year in which people would start Algebra would vary from 6th grade to 9th
grade. You could be paced based off of your level.

I remember moving to France after 9th grade and realising that I already knew
basically everything that would be taught to me for the rest of high school in
Math, because I was able to have such a head-start thanks to my pre-AP Math
classes.

I think that shows that the American HS system is in fact well adapted to fast
learners, as well as accommodating to slower people (the bar could be set
pretty low for the baseline classes because the strongest students were in
different classes).

A corollary to this is that the standardised testing was a joke to the set of
students who were in the advanced classes. The biggest waste of time ever.

I only experienced Northern Texas' version of this, and from what I heard my
understanding is that most school districts in the US could not afford to run
programs like this. Thinking back on it, I'm pretty sure Texas has a really
good educational system (the results compared to other states are really
pretty good considering that Texas is the 4th poorest state in the union).

~~~
aruss
This has been the opposite of my experience. The US school system is extremely
inhibitive to fast learners. Everything is on a curriculum, and it's really
difficult to get around the bureaucracy to get ahead.

I was homeschooled/self-taught since the 2nd grade until about high school
when I started attending community college full-time. At that point I was
about "even" with my best friend, who is also considered very intelligent. I
was then able to pick which semester-long classes to take. For example, I was
taking third year calculus my sophomore year, a full year before he was able
to take Calc 1. And this was no discrepancy due to ability. (for those curious
I applied to colleges at the 'regular' time and am now attending a 4-year
institution without transferring any of my credits).

The fact of the matter is that the American public school system wasn't
developed with education in mind, and now functions more as crowd control than
as an educational institution.

~~~
rtpg
This experience seems to stem from lack of funding, and schools not having
access to AP classes.

I know I was extremely lucky to be in a school district with funding, I had
access to loads of college credit-level classes thanks to that.

------
readerrrr
We didn't have marks until the third grade( age 9-10 ). Until then you only
had written observation from the teacher about your behavior and development.

There were no tests or pressure. We were very carefree.

~~~
ourmandave
Near the end of the article, according to state Senator David Simmons:

    
    
        Simmons said all that the law requires is for a teacher to sit down with a kindergartener and ask about what he or she learned.
    
        “To assure each one of those children is helped, that we know what the deficits are in each child, so we can address the deficits,” said Simmons.
    

Sounds more like a verbal assessment than a standardized test. But I have to
worry when they attach the results to teacher evaluation and pay.

------
jt2190
Link-bait.

The article only mentions that the state of Florida is developing assessments
for kindergarten students for the upcoming school year. It does not say that
those assessments will take the form of written exams. For all we know the
assessments will take the form of a game.

(Edit: [http://www.instituteofplay.org/2012/01/embedded-
assessment-a...](http://www.instituteofplay.org/2012/01/embedded-assessment-
at-quest-to-learn/))

------
quantisan
This seem like another form of Princess and Tiaras. They do this in Hong Kong
for years already and I can't say it's turning out too well -- Kindergarten
battles: How far would you go to get a place?
[http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/30/world/asia/hong-kong-
kindergar...](http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/30/world/asia/hong-kong-kindergarten-
competition/)

------
tokenadult
Because our fellow participant Colin, who kindly submitted this link, enjoys
thoughtful discussion of education reform, I have to let Colin know that this
source (the blog hosted by the Washington Post newspaper from which this
submission comes) is notoriously unreliable,[1] basically a mouthpiece for
people who work in the current school system in the United States who do not
desire for the system to change in the direction of finding out whether or not
learners compelled to attend public schools actually learn anything while
attending them. I have recommended to Colin before a much better source for
more thoughtful articles on education policy issues, _Education Next_ ,[2] and
I will recommend that site again for him and for onlookers here who would like
to be part of an effort to improve schools around the world.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3314676#up_3315028](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3314676#up_3315028)

[2] [http://educationnext.org/](http://educationnext.org/)

------
readerrrr
At 6 years old, a human is still developing basic skills, that are expected
for everyone. The tests at that age give no useful information.

~~~
hihgiq150
that's just not true. IQ can be measured reliably from the age of 3 and
remains stable throughout life

~~~
philbarr
That seems to be quite a sweeping statement! Any sources for that?

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Spooky23
The common excuse here it's that "you can't manage what you can't measure"

My other big beef with this nonsense is that it's very costly as well. I pay
something like $5k in school taxes annually. I'll probably be picking up a job
to lay for private schooling, because I refuse to send my son through the meat
grinder.

~~~
abfan1127
its also assumed that tests are good way to measure. We send our son to a
Montessori charter school. No homework (he's is 1st grade), its self-guided
with teacher persuasion to keep learning new things, its fantastic. Montessori
is bar far the best way I've found for schools to teach.

~~~
wisty
Tests are a great way to learn, and a terrible way to manage.

Tests are shown to reinforce learning. High stakes tests aren't, though,
because they start to cause too many distortions.

------
kghose
In India they have competitive admission tests for toddlers into pre-
school/kindergarden.

The good news is that it did not seem, in observation, to scar the population
for life - except perhaps give them an aversion to learning - but it did give
me anxiety about school, even though I joined this particular game when I was
a teenager.

I was hoping other countries would not adopt such an inhumane way of
admitting/assessing children but I see a wider adoption in the United States
and I have heard it has been a system for a while in Japan.

When resources are limited I think you should do a lottery (and explicitly say
its a lottery) so that children have no shame when they don't get in or
destructive pride when they do.

Anyone have a list of countries where they do this kind of testing for pre-
schoolers/kindergardeners?

~~~
khc
I went to kindergarten in Hong Kong 25 years ago and we had final exams. Don't
see what's the big deal about this.

------
themartorana
In many if not most cases, you can opt your kid out of much of this
standardized testing - especially all the new Common Core stuff. Your kid
should probably take the SAT depending on their circumstance, but you don't
have to allow your grade school child to suffer through days of absurd
testing.

Edit: Autocorrect

Edit 2: California's opt out form, for example:
[http://cuacc.org/CommonCoreOptOutFormFrontBack.pdf](http://cuacc.org/CommonCoreOptOutFormFrontBack.pdf)

------
cpher
I don't have any objection to basic assessment tests, such as the Iowa Basic
Skills test. It's been used around the USA since the 1930s (my mother grew up
in Iowa in the 1940s and took the test every year!). It's useful for gauging
general progress, but I would definitely object to using it as a "final exam"
used for determining future advancement. I don't think the article even hints
at that.

------
thisjepisje
In the Netherlands, children are 5 or 6 when they enter class 3 and thus start
learning to read and do arithmetic. Is this considered too young by some?

~~~
aerique
They don't really get grades though.

~~~
thisjepisje
If you google 'rapport groep 3' you'll find some grade lists, and there's info
on the CITO website about class 3 tests:

[http://wijzeroverdebasisschool.nl/groep-3/cito-
groep-3/](http://wijzeroverdebasisschool.nl/groep-3/cito-groep-3/)

------
dneronique
> Simmons said all that the law requires is for a teacher to sit down with a
> kindergartener and ask about what he or she learned.

This would have scared the crap out of me as a child. Heck, sitting down in
front of an authority figure and trying to convince them I've learned from
them still scares me.

------
j2kun
As much as I want education to be reformed, things like this push me toward
considering alternate forms of education (for my future children), at least
for the first few years of schooling.

~~~
Andrenid
I wouldn't let my daughter go to any school that did this, and I seriously
think anyone that does needs to reevaluate their priorities.

~~~
cardamomo
Many people don't have much of a choice where to send their children to
school. Public school may be all they can afford.

~~~
abfan1127
many states don't let you choose your own public school. In Arizona, you can
send your kids to schools outside your area or district, only if they "have
capacity".

------
hihgiq150
Here come all the anti-testing comments, as expected. In the smartist era and
in the meritocracy, we need more testing , not less, to help help identify
gifted and slow students. Whether it's an IQ test or a proxy such as the SAT,
testing is the best way to assess individual general cognitive functioning for
large groups of people, as well as identity exceptionally talented
individuals.

More testing raises the stakes for everyone, meaning that the overall
population becomes better educated and competitive, in order to do well on the
tests.

Furthermore, many smart students find coursework boring an get poor grades,
but excel at standardized tests, because they already know the material.

There was a fascinating ted talk awhile ago about how standardized tests,
contrary to being useless as often ascribed by the left, can predict lifetime
outcomes such as wages, being published in a journal, level of academic
attainment, and so on.

~~~
smtddr
Complete nonsense.

Also,

 _" In Florida, the results of end-of-course exams affect the evaluation and
pay of teachers."_

So I bet low-income areas with less-educated parents working 2 jobs and too
exhausted to really help their kids at home probably will have the lowest
scores. So any quality-teachers in poorer areas will be less paid, so they'll
leave, so the scores will go down, thus the pay goes down, so the quality-
teachers leave, so the scores will go down, thus the pay goes down, so the
quality-teachers leave...

And what's the end result of that? The kids who need help _THE MOST_ are the
ones who get _THE LEAST_.

 _> >There was a fascinating ted talk awhile ago about how standardized tests,
contrary to being useless as often ascribed by the left, can predict lifetime
outcomes such as wages, being published in a journal, level of academic
attainment, and so on._

Anyone who is considering tests for predicting people's future potential
should watch this movie:
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119177/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119177/)

EDIT: I just noticed you said "the left", so you probably just have an axe to
grind and I'm wasting my time with this comment.

~~~
hyperpape
Most education reformers want to evaluate teachers based on the
improvement/lack of improvement in their classes. This tends to mitigate the
problem of good teachers in weak schools being punished. I think this is in
place some places, though I can't whether there are places that do this the
absurd way you're afraid of.

