In classrooms where finger painting and building blocks are integral parts of the school day, kindergarteners across the country are now sitting down and circling the “answer choice that best answers the question.” Despite the early age of the test-takers, more and more districts, such as the Chicago Public Schools, have started to administer exams to 5-year-olds.
As of September, 25 states now regulate some form of standardized testing in kindergarten. The degree of difficulty varies from district to district, with tests ranging from 20 question oral quizzes to 40 question-long written multiple choice exams.
The increased trend of testing kindergarteners results from the Obama administration’s increased support of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in 2011. An act first instigated in 2001, NCLB mandates states to annually administer standardized tests to students grade three and above to measure the student’s level of improvement. Principals and teachers of schools whose students’ test scores fall behind are at risk of being fired.
In order to prevent students from lagging in improvement later on, school administrators in many states have deemed introducing the standardized test to younger grades as the solution.
However, testing at such a young age is both unnecessary and inaccurate. The information gathered from the test data hardly proves anything. After all, 5-year-olds experience vast changes in abilities and habits as they mature.
Additionally, there may be issues with accuracy of test results when evaluating kindergarteners. As Minnesota teacher Kari Knutson said in an interview with Reuters, when she brought her kindergarteners to the computer lab to take a literacy test, “[the students] were supposed to respond by clicking on the correct answer, though not all could maneuver the mouse and some gave up in frustration.”
Knutson’s predicament highlights another problem with early testing. What is there to even test kindergarteners on? Kindergarten education focuses on building basic phonics skills and developing the ability to socialize with others. There simply isn’t enough material in the curriculum to formulate a cohesive test.
Still, stubborn administrators have managed to create exams for these 5-year-olds; however, they are often beyond the scope of what kindergarteners are able to comprehend.
For example, one exam question given to kindergarteners in a school in New York required them to answer how many ways one could arrange six books between two shelves. With no background in algebra and shaky foundations in basic math, it is nearly impossible for any 5-year-old to answer that question, not to mention that it may be well beyond their cognitive development.
These difficult tests only reduce confidence in young students at an early age, an age where teachers should be focusing on building self-esteem and love of school in the little learners. Kindergarten should not be about bubbling in correct answers on a sheet of paper; kindergarten is the year when the newly introduced students learn to feel comfortable and happy and little else.