Measuring Up

We began administering our district-mandated math assessment. Yes, for kindergarteners. It’s nearly 20 pages long. It’s a useful tool to compare the understanding of some basic concepts for many of my students but for Tweedledum and Tweedledee, it only shows me that they are still five year-olds as they try to color the pictures and circle the page numbers as their answer choices. For them, this test is not an appropriate measure of their skills and knowledge. Tweedledee can give me four toy dinosaurs if I ask for them but he cannot choose a group of four from a selection printed in black-and-white in a stapled booklet. Does that mean he doesn’t meet the standard or does the test not reflect what the standard means for young children?

–guestblogger Alice in Eduland

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