National push to test five-year-olds for career readiness!

Five-year-olds put to the test as kindergarten exams gain steam

A national push to make public schools more rigorous and hold teachers more accountable has led to a vast expansion of testing in kindergarten. And more exams are on the way, including a test meant to determine whether 5-year-olds are on track to succeed in college and career.

Paul Weeks, a vice president at test developer ACT Inc., says he knows that particular assessment sounds a bit nutty, especially since many kindergarteners aspire to careers as superheroes. "What skills do you need for that, right? Flying is good. X-ray vision?" he said, laughing.

But ACT will soon roll out college- and career-readiness exams for kids age 8 through 18 and Weeks said developing similar tests for younger ages is "high on our agenda." Asking kids to predict the ending of a story or to suggest a different ending, for instance, can identify the critical thinking skills that employers prize, he said.

At least 25 states now mandate at least one formal assessment during kindergarten. Many local school districts require their own tests as well, starting just a few weeks into the academic year.

This story just turns my stomach.

Long before we start assessing student performance at this age, perhaps we should be assessing teacher performance in a more meaningful way.

The world just keeps getting nuttier each day...

Why can't we just let kids be kids? In my day Kindergarten was about acquiring the basic skills like learning to write, cut with scissors, learning to share and get along with others. I loved my childhood and no one tried to cram down testing and career learning and I turned out just fine.

The pressure to succeed will only hurt these kids in the long run. Besides, who are we to identify what 'success' is?

reply to post by loam


A career at Unemployment?


Just awesome..........





Sorry for being cynical.

reply to post by loam


I don't know about anyone else, but I absolutely despised standardized tests when I was in school.
They were boring, monotonous, and incredibly easy.

I think is a large problem with our education system, trying to "standardize" everyone. I knew some very smart people who were just terrible at taking those tests, and vice versa.

It is extra disturbing that they are starting this nonsense in kindergarten now. They should be teaching kids how to think for themselves, not programming them with linear hard-wiring.

reply to post by loam


Whats wrong with testing? they aren't going to label the kids. Kids interest in educations starts around when they are 4-5 yr old. I always used to test my Niece and nephew with planets and different type of bacteria/virus/fungus.

I sucked as a kid, but i picked up around grade 7. i think i would have been more prepared if they did test me early in the age to see my interest in education or rather which subject.

My Niece and Nephew are top in class in their science classes(they are grade 3 and 4 now), thanks to their uncle.!

Originally posted by luciddream


Whats wrong with testing? they aren't going to label the kids.

Dont know about you, but I see lots of Labeling with children.From labeling children to criminals, or children with disorders, I see actually labeling alot. Again, children have enough "testing" as it is. I say let them grow up to be, what they want to be.

This sounds a lot like what the soviets used to do, definitely not a good direction to be heading in.

All of this testing and measuring for performance is going to lead to planned careers and set tracks for each student.

It's the only way any of this could have any value. Otherwise there are too many variables for the data to be worth anything for students, teachers, parents or administrators. It's just data for datas sake.

I'm halfway through my life, hold post grad degrees, a ton of certs, and I still dont know what I would want to do for "the rest of my life."

Picking a thing and doing that thing until you die seems so sick and sad to me.

starting the brainwashing early... the state wants to make sure the children grow up to be mindless minions ... erm .. good citizens... easier to program them when they're young ...

asinine.. let them enjoy childhood... soon enough they will grow up to find the cold realities of life and serfdom...

Haha let me guess there are 4 categories: Astronaut, Fireman, Pilot, Professional athlete. Pretty pointless asking a 5 year old things unless it's for humor.

Well this is a capitalist nation...if a kid can't be a strong worker then they are useless.

What do you expect?

I don't see how this testing is going to help with anything. Most five year olds are still willing to eat mud pies and are easily amused with pine cone wars. They still believe you when you tell them "I've got your nose" and can't figure out how you pulled that quarter from their ear. Doesn't sound like they're ready for career testing to me.

Grades and testing typically start in the 6th grade of American schools. I think that's too early. Why not just teach and not test until kids reach high school? Then at that point, test and test hard. I think tests should be designed so the majority of questions are answered wrongly, with passing grade at 40 and average around 50.

Pretty soon Google is going to be paying parents of gifted five year olds 10G a year in exchange for their child's employment straight out of high school for a discounted rate.

Oh great more standardized tests...

Originally posted by luciddream
reply to post by loam

 

Whats wrong with testing?

A lot. Standardized tests are some of the worst things ever implemented into our education system. They cause a disconnect in the classroom when standardize test time comes around. The teachers have to switch from teaching relevant information to teaching the students the test (not how to figure out the answers) so that their school can get higher scores and more funding. The teachers themselves then get blamed if the test scores are low and in return the gov't lowers the schools funding making the school worse. For the kids its even worse, they are being denied a proper education when their teacher teaches the test to them in lieu of teaching them something relevant. Since the content of the tests is standardized, even if the teacher actually teaches the information on the test, the information is so dry that it is hard to pay attention to it.

Now they want to give these tests to kindergardeners. That's just silly, kindergarden is pre-grade school. These kids aren't really even learning anything that should be tested. Also how are these kids going to fill out the answers? With crayons?

reply to post by RealSpoke


I think you're very confused. Sounds more like collectivist thinking to me.