Education Next – Michael J. Petrilli
“Way back in the late 1960s, when federal officials and eminent psychologists were first designing the National Assessment of Educational Progress, they probably never contemplated testing students younger than nine. After all, the technology for mass testing at the time—bubble sheets and No. 2 pencils—only worked if students could read the instructions and the questions, hold a pencil, and fill in their answers. Yes, there have been early-childhood assessments available for decades, instruments like the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, but they require teachers to sit down one-on-one with students while students sound out words, identify numbers, and demonstrate other skills in person. Using those sorts of tests for a nationally representative examination system would have been logistically complex, prohibitively expensive, and politically untenable.” (more)