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StumbleSUN EDITORIAL:
Kindergarten blues
Nation’s emphasis on achievement has led school officials to cut out play for young students
Sunday, Sept. 6, 2009 | 2:06 a.m.
Kindergartners across the nation are learning a lesson about education: Fun isn’t part of the curriculum.
A new report by the child-advocacy group Alliance for Childhood says the demands of the federal No Child Left Behind Act have forced schools to cut out play time for the nation’s youngest students. Kindergarten requirements are now essentially the same as they were for first graders 20 years ago.
That may be why schools are holding more kindergartners back instead of promoting them to first grade. Several states have seen the number of children held back skyrocket. In Texas, for example, the number of kindergartners held back in 2004 was more than 2 1/2 times what it was a decade prior.
As The Boston Globe reported last Sunday, many experts believe unrealistic expectations are placed on kindergartners.
“We are sending too many children to school to learn that they are dumb,” said David Elkind, a psychologist and early childhood expert. “They are not dumb. They are just not there developmentally.”
Elkind and other experts say that use of worksheets and methods that work for older students are inappropriate for kindergartners. Playing and doing things — rather than sitting at a desk — help kindergartners learn.
But the federal law, which mandates standardized testing in third grade, harshly penalizes schools that fail to meet achievement goals. As a result, kindergartners are being put through testing and doing work more appropriate for older students in the belief that they’ll be better prepared once they reach third grade.
“These are 5- and 6-year-olds,” said Michael Kenney, a Massachusetts kindergarten teacher, “and there is so little time for them to be kids.”
Indeed. Kindergartners should be challenged and educated, but schools should be teaching in age-appropriate ways. Standardized testing is not the answer.
We hope Congress and the Obama administration will put some common sense — and some play — back into kindergarten and let kids be kids.
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The No Child Left Behind program has placed far too much emphasis on tests and not enough on actual achievement. Teaching to the test has replaced teaching for achievement and mastery. Rote memorization of facts, figures, data has replaced original creative thinking, analysis and comprehension of subject matter.
Testing to determine student mastery is important and should be a form of accountability for school, administrators, teachers and the students. But today, testing is held as a gun to the head of administrators and teachers thus the over emphasis on testing for the sake of testing. Under NCLB a
school, class, subject area, teacher or student is not successful unless a uniform standard is met. Thus, the attention is placed upon the lowest achiever in that class or subject area. The minimum becomes the maximum expectation and the entire educational process is dumbed down to that level.
It is no wonder that play time, or recess, has been eliminated in some schools. The emphasis is upon test scores, group achievement and the impression that successful tests reflect an accomplished educational program. Administrators and teachers have become obsessed with testing and test score results; there are pre-tests, post-tests, test analysis, etc., etc. Attention is always on the lowest achiever who must meet minimum expectations for the entire, class, subject or school to be successful.
In many instances teachers are not allowed to fail students; in some district schools a student who does absolutely no work for a quarter receives a 50% grade thus assuring that there is no semester failure. Even the issuance of a D grade is frowned upon by administrators; every student must be successful in today's educational environment. Every student must be deemed a success.
John F. Kennedy must be rolling in his grave, for years now. Back in the 60's Prez. Kennedy had an exercise program created for kids from elementary thru high school age. This helped their coordination develope along with their bodies as they grew up. A sound mind is a sound body. It's no wonder that alot of our children are suffering from obesity. Bookwork alone will not the child make.
What the NCLB has failed to do is give teachers the authority to fail students who do not meet minimal course requirements like homework, special projects, unit and semester exams. Placating parents and students with super inflated grades does not improve education, it only has degraded it. Instead it is the teacher who is at fault if the lowest achiever fails to meet minimal standards; the blame falls further upon the entire school, department or subject area if too many low achievers fail to meet the minimum; again, the minimum expectation becomes the maximum.
The grade for any specific course should be determined by one absolute and that is the final grade on an end of course achievement test whether designed by state, district or individual teacher. Whatever the grade the student earns on the final year end test is the course grade for that subject for the year. The pressure will be on students and their parents to prepare continually throughout the year for the final exam; homework ,unit and quarter exams becomes a continual measure of student mastery and make-up work is not the issue for the final grade.
Do not worry. Democrats plan to have 4 year olds in schools soon. Pre school and Head Start is not enough. They want pre school to be in regular schools with union teachers helping prepare our young for "their" future. Just get them away from the parents early enough and we teach them what they need to know.
Democrats will not be happy until 6 month olds are in school.
Just a FYI, the primary co-sponsor of No Child Left Behind is Ted Kenney.
People, this is what happens when local control is shifted to a remote, completely out-of-touch, increasingly irrelevant but increasingly powerful centralized government -- the kind of government the federal Constitution forbids.
Schools should be locally established to serve local needs. Yes, there needs to be some standards to be met. Oregon's failed educational experiment of replacing diplomas with "certificates of mastery" comes to mind. The result was high school grads could not get into out of state universities. But inner city urban schools have much different needs than their rural counterparts.